John Bowker will make the Giants sorry they sent him to Pittsburgh

I see no reason for the Pirates to not give him a shot, even despite his D (I’m of the opinion that his D is “better” in the OF than it is at 1B, where he’s a butcher). I mean, it’s not like they’re contending, what risk do they take by giving him a shot? If he hits as well as his MLE’s suggest, he’s still a nice player despite his D.

cause thats from The Neverending Story

Oh okay. Lopez really has been average at best with .57 WHIP and 1.29 ERA. Like I said, it’s a SSS, but he has produced thus far and Bowker thus far in his MLB career hasn’t even been league average. Get over it.

Look up Posey’s MLE before he came up and then look at his production so far. MLE is virtually meaningless. Last time I checked they don’t take into effect how much better breaking balls are at the show rather than the PCL. And the whole “he never got a chance” line is comical to me. He got a chance at the beginning, albeit a small chance, didn’t produce and in his AB’s showed Sabean and Bochy that he still can’t lay off the backfoot breaking ball. He looked like the same exact hitter he always has looked like when he got his small chance.

And if you think that we could have had Lopez for less than Bowker, more power to ya. I don’t see it that way.

And again, 350 of Bowker’s 513 career PA’s came before he actually started hitting in AAA. He’s shown a real improvement as a hitter since then, and he has yet to be given a real shot at PT.

This is simply false. In 09’ he had a .620 OPS in 67 ab’s, and had a .609 OPS in 82 ab’s this year. That actually means he’s getting worse.

If you want to put your stock into what a player’s hitting statistics look like in the PCL, more power to you. I’m not bashing statistics, I think they’re very useful, but some times you really do have to just watch a player’s at-bats with your eyes to give you another opinion. And Bowker so far at the big leagues has looked completely over matched.

Also, not that anecdotes are evidence or Bowker = Dustin Pedroia, but in 2006 the Red Sox brought Pedroia up and gave him 98 PA’s at the end of the year (mostly in regular PT). He responded with a 40 wRC+. You know what happened the next year? Dustin Pedroia broke out of Spring Training as the starting 2B for the Red Sox, and put up a ~4 WAR season. The point is not to say Bowker will follow in those footsteps – the point is that sometimes, guys fail in small sample sizes despite having more talent than they displayed. Sometimes, it makes sense to stick with them and keep them in your plans, because if they really are that talented, eventually, you’re going to be rewarded.

A SSS of poor MLB performance, especially in a situation where the guy is fucked with the way Bowker’s been, doesn’t give us very conclusive evidence that he can’t perform. If this was the Red Sox doing what we’ve done to a player, I’d probably give their talent evaluators the benefit of the doubt and say they must see something that makes them discount his AAA performance. This isn’t the Red Sox, though. This is the Giants. An organization who’s top baseball man says he doesn’t know what to make of minor league stats. An organization who’s manager has a love fetish with veteran grit. An organization who, eariler this very year, shipped out a cheap, productive corner OF for reasons that don’t seem to make sense. That the Giants have obviously decided to never give Bowker a shot doesn’t really make me believe he can’t perform at the MLB level….