Giants hitters trying too hard?
I feel a little sorry for Lansford. And some of the hitters need to be kicked in the groin.
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This is where I stopped reading, due to the stupid
They rank 10th in the NL in batting average and 13th in runs, which says they can get guys on base but struggle to get them home.
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
To clarify
The Giants averae is irrelevant. They are dead last (14th) in OBP. Meaning that they DON’T get guys on base. That they aren’t also last in runs suggest that they’re actually pretty ok at driving in the few baserunners they manager to put on.
To put it simply: The Giants aren’t bad situational hitter, they’re just bad hitters.
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You as well?
I usually think well of Shuman but OBP is not a new idea. Heck the topic was covered in a kids baseball book printed back in the day ( Sorry but it is too late to remember the name and all I remember is he played on a team named The Chicks and the player that would never get a hit but would foul balls off tell he walked. And OBP is not as rosy about the Giants ability to get on base.
That’s it! Katie bar the door for this 79 win team is star crossed! And I am loving it.
by daveinexile on Aug 28, 2009 10:57 PM PDT up reply actions
Here is that blasted kids book.
The Kid Who Batted 1000 by Bob Allison © 1951.
Anyways my point is the DH is half the age of the concept OBP and I don’t see half the restance to the DH I there seems to be to OBP among the media in general.
That’s it! Katie bar the door for this 79 win team is star crossed! And I am loving it.
by daveinexile on Aug 28, 2009 11:10 PM PDT up reply actions
I wanted to punch the newspaper in the face when I read that.
Seriously, who pays these people to write about baseball?
by AmorVincitOmnia on Aug 29, 2009 2:17 PM PDT up reply actions
“It’s not that they’re not trying. They’re trying too hard. They’re not sticking to a plan when they go to the plate. They have an idea what they want to do, but our team is such an aggressive-hitting team, sometimes it gets us in trouble.”
I’m not sure you can’t blame the coaches for guys not following instructions, but at the end of the day, it really is the players who must go along with the game plan and execute it.
If what Lansford says in the article is true, then he does teach patience and working the count and having a clue of what to do when you go up there and the players mostly ignore that and just do what they want to do anyway. It sounds as if there needs to be some more incentivizing when it comes to these issues.
Neal before Zod!
Official Sponsor of the 1997 San Francisco Giants
by nostocksjustbonds on Aug 28, 2009 11:58 PM PDT reply actions
Teams aren't allowed to incentivise performance beyond PT.
At least in contracts. I don’t know how the MLBPA would respond to token/“Gentleman’s wager” type incentives. Perhaps the team’s union rep would make a flap if the Lansford offered Molina first crack at the post game spread in every game in which he walks.
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You mean like Kangaroo court? It happens. Probably not with food with anyone but Bengie and Prince, but it happens
That's other players, though.
It’s different if the manager and coaches are handing them out.
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
You missed the point. Kangaroo court is never run by management. Any veteran player can step up and be a leader for this team. Its not about the money involved because they can all afford it. Its about challenging one another to do the right thing so you don’t face the embarrassment of getting up in front of your teammates to face the “court.” Frank Robinson and Don Baylor are notorious for it.
The only problem on the Giants is which veteran can lead by example? Because none of them seem to be willing to change their approach. The only one I can see that has made any progess this season is Pablo, but only because he has gone from swinging at absolutely everything to swinging at slightly less than everything. Thats not good enough to earn the respect of the rest of the guys who should be fined
the coaches and manager are technically the players’ bosses. If you don’t listen to your boss in the real world you get fired. Replace these hackers with some hitters who have a clue. Step one is replacing the worst offender, Bengie Molina, with the best example of what Lansford tries to preach, Buster Posey.
embarrassed father of over the hill Edgardo Renteria
I didn't miss the point.
I’m saying that the coaches can’t do it. I’m sure the players could if they wanted too, but the original poster implied some sort of coach-mandated incentives, which are clearly different.
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
I don’t mean contractual incentives, but how about benching a guy, even a veteran, who doesn’t follow instructions to work the count, etc, even in the middle of the game? I know that may lead to an incomplete starting lineup w/ this team, but it is something the team can do. Unfortunately, Bochy is so reliant on “playing the hot hand” and “the veteran is due” nonsense that he wouldn’t do it.
Neal before Zod!
Official Sponsor of the 1997 San Francisco Giants
by nostocksjustbonds on Aug 29, 2009 3:04 PM PDT up reply actions
Or penalties. In a real job, not handling your job in an instructed manner leads to discipline. Fine them every time they see less than X number of pitches a game. Something like that. Right now, it appears you have a coach saying “do this” but it’s coming off as a friendly suggestion.
Professional baseball player is not a real job.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 29, 2009 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions
Shawonana notwithstanding:
/Shawonana with Snidely Whiplash grin lurking in clubhouse, working his anti-mailman magic
Juan Marichal's bat > JR's head
by titofuentes4 on Aug 29, 2009 4:45 AM PDT up reply actions
with caption: CHEATING THE GAME
Juan Marichal's bat > JR's head
by titofuentes4 on Aug 29, 2009 6:35 AM PDT up reply actions
lol Giants
Still in despair.
"Use the stencil! Do it!"
konakona:「つかさに教われと...なんか非常に負けたような気がする。」
Shun Kakazu: MOAR JAPANESE PROSPECTS PLZ
I wasn’t aware that they were trying at all!
"Trust me: If I’m feeling lousy at the plate like that, I’m not just going to walk up there with bases loaded and get a hit because I’m some great clutch hitter." - Mr. F!
comics | art | Nattowear | Unofficial McImage Directory
Ahem
Tommy Joseph is the Dingerzball Wizard
by SoFa King Mike on Aug 29, 2009 12:28 AM PDT reply actions
Wow. That mullet is sweet and they even spelled Shawon correctly. On a side note, did anyone notice Panda chatting with him after he popped that ball into the bleachers tonight? It was almost like a puppy running up to his owner looking for his reward. Kind of confirmed who is the real hitting coach on the Giants. I feel bad for Carney, he faces an uphill battle if he truely “is not opposed to walks.”
He must go!
Juan Marichal's bat > JR's head
by titofuentes4 on Aug 29, 2009 4:47 AM PDT up reply actions
Seems like he’s more concerned with getting them to ground out to 2B though.
My Bucardo is better than yours.
A hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill. Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter's myth, it is a vulgarity, like a writer who writes only for money.
Jeez, you guys are way too tough on Shawon Dunston. He’s not the hitting coach. I saw a great interview with him on the Dbacks network a few nights ago, where he talked about how his deceased ex manager was such a good influence on his life and how he passed the lessons on to his son. He’s a recently retired player and the players relate to him much better than they do to 60 year old managers and coaches. He probably talks to them about life, and how to deal with fame and fortune, life on the road, and keeping grounded. I hope you guys are kidding when you talk about him, because if you think when they come to him for advice his advice consists of telling them not to walk, you’re pretty ridiculous.
embarrassed father of over the hill Edgardo Renteria
I hope you guys are kidding when you talk about him, because if you think when they come to him for advice his advice consists of telling them not to walk, you’re pretty ridiculous.
No, no. We’re serious.
Even if everything you posit about him is true, it does not outweigh the dammage done to this team’s offense by his reinforcing horrible hitting approaches among our hitters. The very fact that the Giants employ two coaches on the major league level that have contradictory approaches to hitting and allow them to express those conflicting approaches to an already horrible hitting team is unfathomable.
So, yes, I think Shawon Dunston should be fired because the hitting approach he espouses is awful, unless he agrees to never speak to another Giants hitter publicly or privately about hitting a baseball. Fielding it? Fine. Golf? Great. Financial management? Whatever. Just don’t open your mouth, EVER, about hitting.
Still the loving, adoptive father of Hector Sanchez. And who doesn't love switch-hitting catchers with power and patience?
hmm. Shawon never struck me as the type of guy who has to be asked in order to give an opinion.
Please hit better, Randy Winn.
I have to defer to you guys, because you’re obviously inside the dugout and locker room and hear all the intimate conversations between Dunston and the players. I’m sure you heard this before, but when Billy Beane was a player he NEVER walked. His final year he batted 79 times without drawing a single walk. He obviously realized the error of his ways after he retired. What makes you think Dunston hasn’t realized that if he was more patient when he was playing he would have been a better player as well? Just because he made a couple of jokes about “his own lack of selectivity at the plate and the mailman?” Please tell me which player has gone backwards since joining the team in terms of patience and if you find one, prove to me that he’s been talking to Dunston.
I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I really expect far more intelligent discussions when I come to McCovey. All this fire the hitting coach when a team can’t hit, and all the fire the pitching coach when the team can’t pitch sounds like sports talk radio at its worst.
embarrassed father of over the hill Edgardo Renteria
Molina's the easy choice.
Tough always a hacker, both his BB totals and especially his pitches/PA have dropped notably since joining the Giants (and particularly in the last two seasons).
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don’t you think a lot of that is because the Giants’ have put him in the cleanup spot the last two seasons, and basically made him think he’s the big RBI guy on the team? Again, how do you know that Shawon Dunston has anything to do with this? He’s the INFIELD COACH, not the hitting coach. You have a hitting coach who clearly states he wants his hitters to be more selective, you have a veteran player who clearly isn’t, yet somehow that is the fault of the infield coach!
Let’s face it, the fault lies with Sabean. He signs the players, he trades for the players. He brings in hackers all over the place, and coaches have a tough time teaching old dogs new tricks. You think if he signed Jason Giambi instead of the Rockies, he would have suddenly come in here and become an undisciplined hacker because Shawon Dunston is infield coach?
embarrassed father of over the hill Edgardo Renteria
No, I don't think that.
Because he’s been just as if not more impatient with the bases empty as he has with runners one base.
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I think the point about on bease/no one on is moot – I submit that the reason his walks and pitches/PA are down is because he is pressing in an effort to do more than he can do. I think Bengie feels pressure to hit like a #4 hitter instead of like a Bengie Molina. In fact, it might be that he feels more pressure to hit dingerz with nobody on than with baserunners.
Sorry if I’m misrepresenting rxmeister…
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 29, 2009 4:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Then he's stupid as well as a bad hitter.
Just sayin’.
Actually, I think his always slow speed has decreased to glacial, and he’s severely compromised his always weak batting approach in an attempt to maximize his fly ball rate (the whole “clogging the basepads” BS might also play a role in him swinging for contact rather than settling for a walk).
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
Then he’s stupid as well as a bad hitter.
To call someone who has been placed in the 4-hole trying to hit like a fourth place hitter stupid is, well, I don’t know what, but welcome to dealing with human beings. It’s obvious he belongs lower down in the lineup, but to get to Major Leagues you need to be very driven and ultra competitive… while it may be counter productive, it’s hardly surprising or stupid that he is trying to live up to the role he has been (unfairly) given. For a catcher, his offensive production is not at all horrible, it’s only when you expect him to be Ryan Howard that he becomes disappointing. The stupidity is in having him hit fourth night after night.
I think his always slow speed has decreased to glacial, and he’s severely compromised his always weak batting approach in an attempt to maximize his fly ball rate
Yes – except I think this is leading him to try to maximize his HR rate with nobody on. No clogged basepaths with dingerz. With men on, I think he’s more focused on just getting hits to move them over, leading to a better approach.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 30, 2009 9:59 AM PDT up reply actions
To call someone who has been placed in the 4-hole trying to hit like a fourth place hitter stupid is, well, I don’t know what, but welcome to dealing with human beings
Actually, I think the whole “he’s trying to hit like a #4 hitter” explanation is bogus. If it is true (which, again, I doubt), then he’s stupid for thinking that a #4 hitter’s job to to swing at every pitch in the same area code as home plate, because that’s simply not the case and anyone with modicum of intelligence would realize this through simple observation. A more credible explaination, IMO, is that he’s simply a bad hitter suffering from normal age-related decline.
Yes – except I think this is leading him to try to maximize his HR rate with nobody on. No clogged basepaths with dingerz. With men on, I think he’s more focused on just getting hits to move them over, leading to a better approach.
His HR rate is virtually the same whether there’s men on or not. He’s taking the same approach up there in all situations, I suspect that the only difference is that pitchers tend to throw more strikes with men on, regardless of the batter’s reputation.
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If you don’t think batting fourth brings added mental pressure, we’ll never agree on this (He’s swinging at more crap the last two years because he’s pressing. He’s pressing because of unfair expectations). On the other hand, age related decline is certainly not unreasonable…
I guess what it really comes down to is calling the man stupid rubs me the wrong way. I think the stupidity lies in writing his name in the fourth slot on the lineup card every night.
Have you ever batted under tremendous pressure? with expectations that you can’t live up to? Dispassionate reasoning in the batter’s box is difficult and I think pretty rare… that said, no one can argue that swinging at terrible pitches is going to lead to success.
On a related note – I found an article on Hardball Times listing Renteria and F. Sanchez as prime examples of players suffering from age related decline in 2008. Is the whole center of the diamond turning into an old folks home? Jesus Christ, now I’m depressed.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 30, 2009 11:33 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm sure that he has felt pressure
I disagree about the link between more pressure and swinging at everything. I also think that we’d have seen some improvement as Molina got used to his new lineup spot if pressure were the culprit, but Bengie’s patience regressed over his (almost) 2-year tenure in the cleanup spot.
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
Hmmmm…. my thinking was that at first, he managed to forget his place in the order and just try to have good at-bats, but over time has been slipping more and more into the mentality of ’I’m a cleanup hitter, I’ve gotta produce’ – hence the trend.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 31, 2009 8:21 AM PDT up reply actions
“What makes you think Dunston hasn’t realized that if he was more patient when he was playing he would have been a better player as well?”
In an interview in Chronicle Live he basically said that players shouldn’t worry about drawing walks.
You’d have to see the interview.
He doesn’t sugar-coat his opinion, and he’s pretty clear-cut in what he means. He doesn’t care about being patient, and doesn’t believe players should concern themselves with it either.
by AmorVincitOmnia on Aug 29, 2009 2:25 PM PDT up reply actions
Can anyone say for sure that he tells them not to walk? No. Is there reason to believe he does? Yes. Why?
Sports Illustrated this month :
As Giants infield coach Shawon Dunston, a notorious free swinger in his playing days, puts it, “You want to see a walk? Then go watch the mailman.”
The guy walked 203 times in 6276 plate appearances and throws out quotes like that to national media and you don’t think he has mentioned that Giants players once, twice, maybe 5000 times?
that looks like an attempt to be funny to me. Again, none of what is happening with the Giants and their lack of selectivity can be traced to the words and deeds of the infield coach. Let me know when Nate Schierholtz says he’s in this slump because Lansford keeps telling him to be more selective and Dunston keeps telling him to swing at everything.
embarrassed father of over the hill Edgardo Renteria
I think most people...
Just believe that he may influence some of the players, atleast a little bit.
No one’s blaming solely Dunston or Lansford.
Just that their influence isn’t the best.
I think it would be naive if you believed that none of the players have talked hitting with Dunston. Or that none of the players asked for his advice.
Young players ask around, to pretty much all veterans that they can find.
Unfortunately the veterans they have are guys like Rowand, Dunston, Lansford, Winn, Renteria and Molina.
How much of a difference does this make? Who knows.
I’d just feel more comfortable if there was a hitting coach who actually knew how to take a pitch.
by AmorVincitOmnia on Aug 29, 2009 5:01 PM PDT up reply actions
“We’ve talked to the guys about the need to take a walk,” Lansford said. "They’re not always going to throw you a pitch 3-and-2 to hit. You can’t swing at it because you want to be the guy who gets it done. If they’re not going let you be the guy who does it, let the next guy do it.
AARON ROWAND AARON ROWAND AARON ROWAND
Please hit better, Randy Winn.
Lansford said he still tells Sandoval before every at-bat to swing at strikes.
Now that’s just good coaching.
Osiris, Lord of the Dead, and relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.
FREDEMPTION 2009
he should also
yell it as the pitch comes in, for extra didactic effect.
Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti. "I treat Timmy differently from most pitchers: I leave him alone."
"This is not good, folks."- Duane Kuiper
by natteringnabob on Aug 29, 2009 9:44 AM PDT up reply actions
Something about this...
Seems kinda stupid.
I mean… Who doesn’t try to swing at strikes?
“Hey Sandoval! Don’t make an error!”
Doesn’t sound like good coaching to me.
by AmorVincitOmnia on Aug 29, 2009 2:28 PM PDT up reply actions
I think the point is that he swings at a lot of non-strikes… of course, sometimes he hits them very far.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 29, 2009 4:46 PM PDT up reply actions
True.
But my point was that, Lansford should be giving him instructions on HOW to do that, and not just telling him “only swing at strikes”.
by AmorVincitOmnia on Aug 29, 2009 4:52 PM PDT up reply actions
I guess my point is you don’t do that on the way to the on deck circle… instead, you use an often repeated phrase (like ‘swing at strikes’) that reminds him of the things you had talked about in depth earlier.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 30, 2009 9:25 AM PDT up reply actions
Possibly.
I just have my doubts about Lansford.
by AmorVincitOmnia on Aug 30, 2009 6:27 PM PDT up reply actions
I have doubts as well, it’s just that that particular thing makes sense to me.
Utter frustration and futility.
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 30, 2009 11:00 PM PDT up reply actions
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