A Walk Through All The Players I Had Time To Write About: The San Francisco Giants 2002 In Review

by Adam Coutts

This year, as opposed to Gregg pretending to offer a statistical analysis, Adam Coutts makes his EEEEEE! debut with an actual analysis of -- as he says -- all the players he had time to write about. (The numbers next to each player's name are an estimate made by Clay Davenport of Baseball Prospectus as to how many runs each each player added to the offense relative to a replacement-level player, i.e., one freely available through waivers or cheap trade).

Position Players

Barry Bonds, LF (140.8)

What can be said that hasn't already been picked over infinitely? As many have already said, Bonds' year at the plate was probably even mightier than his legendary home-run-record year in 2001. As many have already said, his last two years may have been the greatest-hitting two-year peak performance in baseball history. As many have already said, Barry won his fifth MVP award in 2002 (and he probably deserved to win two more, in 1992 and 2000), while no other single player ever has more than three. As many have already said, his play has forced many opponents to redefine how they think about working a lineup, and has forced many statheads to redefine how they think about baseball numbers. Barry is the sun in the solar system of the Giants franchise's many successes of the last 10 years, with Sabean, Kent, Baker, Matt Williams, and everyone else as planets and asteroids dwarfed by his magnitude and brilliance. Now that he will be 39 next season, one can only wonder how long can he keep up such a transcendent level of plate work. I hope that we, as Giants fans, all realize how fortunate we have been to witness and benefit from his performance.

Bonds came within two of having more homers than strikeouts this year. This startling stat quantifies how he almost never looks stupid at the plate. You can go a week without seeing him take a big chop and miss flailingly -- in contrast with, say, Shawon Dunston, Reggie Sanders, Pedro Feliz, or even Jeff Kent, who all seem to take at least one silly-looking whiffy hack every at-bat. Bonds usually looks calm, in control, menacing, like a stalking predator who knows exactly what his prey, the opposing pitcher, is going to throw, and exactly what to do with it. He has a look of patient disgust as he straightens up and backs away from the many balls thrown inside or outside, low or high. But then a pitch heads over the plate, and Bonds coils, strikes, and lets loose a powerful rip, often sending the ball screaming the other way.

One reads sometimes things like, "four National Leaguers have driven in more runs over the last two seasons than the man who won both MVP awards in 2001 and 2002, Mr. Barry Bonds. Bonds has driven in 247 runs the last two years. The four NL hitters with more RBIs: Sammy Sosa (268), Albert Pujols (257), Todd Helton (255) and Lance Berkman (254)" (from espn.com's Jayson Stark). And that was put relatively neutrally -- some make stronger claims that Bonds' lower RBI totals are evidence of his lack of real character, that he hits empty homers but can't get the big hits when men are on base and it really counts. Some say that other hitters with higher RBI totals (especially Sosa in 2001) were more deserving of the MVP award.

Bonds' lower RBI totals are a function, however, of how often opposing pitchers and managers respect his hitting talents and do not give him the chance to drive in runs. In the following chart, "Walked w. RISP" is the percentage of times each hitter was walked or hit-by-pitch when they stepped up to the plate with baserunners in scoring position and a base empty. The "Scoring Position" column is the percent of baserunners in scoring position that each hitter did bring home when they stepped up to the plate and did anything besides walk or get hit-by-a-pitch, and the "Any Baserunners" column is the same stat but with runners on first base added as well:

As the chart shows, in 2002 Bonds was clearly the top man in the pack in terms of bringing baserunners home. The reason his RBI totals were lower than others is that the bat was taken from his hands with walks so much more frequently. Interestingly, with the other hitters on this list, it looks as though the more established an RBI threat they are, the more they get an evasion treatment. Sosa, Helton, Green, and Guerrero are thoroughly established, and they walk more in RBI situations. Berkman kind of is, Pujols is getting there, and Burrell is not established yet, and they walk respectively less in RBI situations. The only exceptions are Kent and Rolen, which may be explained by who they have had up behind them

No one gets evaded as much as Bonds, however. With all that avoiding, Bonds set the new MLB single-season record for walks with 198 (breaking his own record, set last year). With 68 intentional walks, he also shattered Willie McCovey's 1969 single-season record. When not walking, Bonds hit .370, which made him the oldest player to ever win a batting title. All those hits and walks powered Bonds to a .582 on-base percentage, which easily surpassed .553 Ted Williams' mark from 1941 and accordingly set the new single-season record with that also. When combined with a .799 slugging percentage, the fourth highest single-season total ever, Bonds was good for a 1.381 OPS, which broke Babe Ruth's 1920 single-season mark in that overarchingly important stat.

Besides such single-season marks, after 17 years of top-flight play, Bonds' tabulating rankings are starting to pile up as well. Bonds famously hit his 600th MLB home run on August 9 at Pac Bell off Pittsburgh's Kip Wells; 600 homers is a feat previously done only by three baseball demigods, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, who are also the only three guys still ahead of Bonds in the career-homer rankings. During the year, a giant tally board against the right-center-field wall kept a display of Bonds slow creep and then passing of Harmon Killebrew, Mark McGwire, and Frank Robinson in the all-time career home run rankings. Bonds may catch his godfather, Mays, in 2003, despite having protested that he would prefer to not want to do anything to eclipse the older man's glory. Some speculate that Bonds may eventually pass Aaron for the number-one spot. If so, such a record, unfortunately for Giants fans, would probably not last long with Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, and others around.

Bonds still has some leg speed, sore hamstrings and declining ability to run down fly balls in left field notwithstanding. As a sign of his speed (and also his control with the bat), he has grounded into a total of only 21 double-plays in the last four years combined (including postseason games) while playing full time -- seven different MLB players had more GIDPs than that in the 2002 season alone. Bonds also still competently steals a base occasionally, usually when the chance of helping win a game seems to warrant braving the risk of injury to his hamstrings. These stolen bases, combined with younger years spent off and running as a leadoff hitter, leave Bonds thirty-eighth all-time in stolen bases. Seven more swipes before he retires, and Bonds will be the first player in MLB history to compile both 500 stolen bases and 500 home runs.

In Phoenix and Chicago, a great hoopla was made of Mark Grace hitting his 500th career double in June. People said silly things like that such a feat showed admirable longevity, the type that is so rare these days. But since Bonds was breaking so many records last year that were actually meaningful and impressive, and the honors were falling on Bonds so fast on their own that they did not need to be manufactured, few noted that Bonds also hit his 500th career double a month after Grace, July 13 against the Rockies at Pac Bell. While Barry is thirty-third in all-time total doubles ranking, the end of the season did find him fourth in all-time career walks, fifth in total extra-base hits, twelfth in runs scored, sixteenth in total bases, and nineteenth in RBIs.

Bonds' hitting is what got the Giants in to the playoffs in 2002, along with Kent's midsummer tear, Lofton's hot September, and the bullpen. Bonds and the bullpen are what advanced the team through the playoffs and painfully close to a World Series victory, along with a phenomenal string of good luck (Scott Rolen's injury being paramount). And after years of talk about what a post-season choker Bonds is, demonstrating some sort of postulated fundamental lack of character, his powerhouse 2002 post-season campaign should put such harping to rest. He hit eight home runs, including some already legendary 450-plus foot shots, as well as drawing a predictably robust number of walks.

The Giants' offense revolves around Barry Bonds -- as does, to be honest, the entire franchise. With Dusty Baker gone and before Felipe Alou was hired, some had the idea to acknowledge this centrality by reviving an early twentieth-century institution by appointing Bonds as player-manager. This might work -- Bonds' success as a player obviously seems to be attributable to not only immense physical gifts and hard work but also a superior understanding of how to win in major league baseball. Things have gotten more complicated in 80 years since folks used to take on both roles, however, and it seems that star cleanup hitter and manager each entail more than a full load of responsibilities by themselves. In addition, Bonds is reputed to have something of a hard time relating to other humans. Probably managing is not for him -- at least not yet.

Teams have noticed that Bonds is an extreme lefty pull-hitter, and accordingly, when he bats with the bases empty, many opposing managers this year put on an extreme defensive shift: three infielders to the right of second base, with the third baseman playing in the shortstop hole. I sometimes wonder why, in the face of this, Bonds doesn't regularly lay an easy bunt down the third base line for a single. The reason may be that, given Bonds' power, he is always a realistic threat to stroke an extra-base hit, so a simple bases-empty single can be considered a suboptimal at-bat.

The degree of dislike many people have for Bonds can be startling. Rick Riley, Jeff Pearlman, and David Halberstam were among those who wrote nasty, venomous, and perhaps unprofessional pieces about him in the last two years. While David Grann also wrote a more insightful and balanced cover story for the New York Times Magazine in the national media this year, many baseball fans in the nation at large seem to share the hatred of Bonds spewed by the poisonous pens of the sports media.

It seems like one reason for all the negative feelings are that Bonds genuinely is a difficult character. It could be from anger from experiencing a lifetime of negative media coverage of first his ballplaying father and now him, or from shyness, or from, as is most commonly attributed, plain ol' nasty arrogance. Regardless, he does appear a miserable subject for a sportswriter to try to get a story from. Many fans, especially those from other cities who don't watch him day-to-day, seem to absorb sportswriters' irritation. It could also be that some of the desk-jockey sportswriters and couch-potato fans are jealous of Bonds' seemingly superhuman athletic accomplishments.

But it also seems that, when they look at Bonds, sportswriters and many baseball fans (who are more white than, say, basketball fans) see an uppity, angry black man. They see Carl Everett, Derek Bell, and Dick Allen, with some Latrell Spreewell and maybe a little Malcolm X mixed in. The unfortunate and regretable complication for them is that Bonds is talented and successful, but they understand this as a mere injustice ("There is no God," sighed a suffering Jeff Pearlman).

This whole point-of-view is ironic, given that Bonds could easily be an icon of the conservative white suburbs to anyone who cared to look closely. Bonds is a loyal and committed husband, he has fathered all of his children in wedlock, and he publically takes an active and nurturing role in his son's upbringing. He is patient, intelligent, and strategic while at bat, in the field, and on the basepaths. He dresses like an MBA when off the field, he has never been in trouble with the law, he certainly doesn't party and carouse like many players seem to, and he shows respect to his elders (his father, Mays, McCovey, Baker). Most importantly, he has gotten to be the best at what he does through mountains of training, health consciousness, and hard work. One would think that, rather than secretly seeing him as the angry arrogant menace, typical of all that is wrong in this country, suburbanites everywhere would place Barry Bonds next to Colin Powell, and would love him and laud him as their respect-worthy ideal of a model minority.

Jeff Kent, 2B (68.6)

But really, Kent had three separate and almost distinct seasons this year, with only the second worthy of all those accolades. He actually sandwiched three months of prodigious hitting between four months of mediocre plate work.

The first period started on March 2. On that day, Kent broke his wrist in a wipeout after some contract-violating motorcycle stunts out on an empty stretch of Arizona highway. [Allegedly. -- GP] Kent then famously lied to the media, the public, and the Giants management about the source of the injury, absurdly claiming that had slipped on a slippery soaped-up truck he had been washing. [Allegedly. Just covering our butts. -- GP] A month later, after missing all of spring training with a cast on his hand, Kent played his first game for the team, and embarked on two months of mediocre hitting. The blame may lie with a hovering dark cloud lingering from his [Alleged -- see above. -- GP] stupid injury and his stupid coverup, or, more likely, from his skills being rusty after missing spring training.

[These season chunks are prorated to 162 games. -- GP]

Of course, that's not a bad line, especially for a second baseman. It is, however, pretty atrocious for the cleanup hitter on a contending team, and less than Kent was capable of. Many Giants fans, me included, woke up to see him as a prick as they had never before, in the light of the whole [Alleged.... -- GP] injury, lying, and subsequent drag-on-the-team sequence.

On the first day of June, however, in a loss to the Rockies at home, Kent banged out two singles, and scored two runs. This announced the arrival of three months of red-hot hitting, a torrent such as the eleven-year veteran had never produced before, and that few players actually ever do produce in the majors. Along with his polar-opposite, the transcendent and distant Bonds, dirt-hog smart-ass Kent carried the team's hard-rolling offense on his shoulders for three months. It seemed that every ball he put in play seemed to either fly out of the park or scoot its way through the infield for a base hit.

Many attributed the source of his hot streak to be Dusty Baker's genius. The reasoning was that when Dusty flipped Bonds and Kent between the third and cleanup spots in the order, either Bonds' heavy bat behind Kent or merely the change of scenery jumpstarted the second baseman's success at the plate. Articles were written about the manager's sage managerial abilities being on display.

Others attributed the turnaround to the "slugout in the dugout." The claim is that this event shook Kent up, lighting a fire under his butt, getting his bat going. It was the middle of the seventh inning of an warm afternoon home game, and (1) first Kent bullied mild-mannered David Bell about a botched double play that was actually more Kent's fault, (2) then Bonds interceded on behalf of Bell, and (3) then a shoving and yelling match broke out between Kent on the one hand and Bonds (with some support from Baker) on the other. The final result of the dustup was Bonds' hands around Kent's throat, and Kent yelling something about he was sick of playing in Bonds' shadow, and how he intended to take his All-Star self elsewhere at the end of the season.

Most interesting about all of this was Kent's subsequent claim that he and Bonds had "a half-dozen" similar mixups before that one, but that they were just not in front of any cameras. Kent has a long history of weird passive-aggressive behavior towards Bonds -- bitching about him behind his back to the national media, and seemingly spending all of the 2001 season able to drive home all other baserunners except the left fielder. It is interesting to see that their relationship sometimes bursts out as aggressive-aggressive as well.

In any event, Kent's hot streak was not produced by any genius managerial move, and it was not produced by any air-clearing shoving match. Those two events happened on June 27 and June 25, respectively, which was about a month after he began his batting assault. Given that Kent has claimed that he doesn't care much about baseball except as a job, a more probable motivation of the hot streak was that his wrist had finally healed, he was finally warmed up after missing spring training, and he wanted to look good to potential suitors in the last year of his contract.

On August 30, against Randy Johnson at Bank One, Kent went 0-for-4, and the hot streak was over.

During September and October, Kent was still scoring some runs. But, batting in front of Bonds, of course he was going to score runs, and Kent was consistently failing to drive men in. He was minimal help during the tough September wild-card stretch run, and, except for the two big home runs to bust open Game Five of the World Series, Kent was useless during the postseason. He might as well have batted sixth or seventh during this stretch, rather than third. During the entire postseason, at tense moments the TV cameras would show first Kent and then Bonds, and the broadcasters would say something about "The Giants Big GunsÔ ." The announcers' simple tension-creating storyline was, however, a couple months out of date -- they might as well have just kept the camera on Bonds the whole time if they wanted to show RBI batters whom the Giants could rely on.

The numbers show that, during his hot streak, Kent walked less than otherwise, but he also struck out at considerably less than his usual merry clip. Also, his doubles totals were way up. All this demonstrates the kind of hitter Kent is when he is on target: a hitter, not a walker, batting long line drives into the corners, along with bouncing singles up the middle and clubbing an occasional high-fly homer into the bleachers.

His defense isn't terrible, but it is unmistakably below average. He makes some spectacular diving plays, but they are plays that a more spry infielder might make with ease. His bat, however, probably currently the best in the majors among mostly light-hitting second basemen, justifies keeping him at the position, rather than moving him to a spot that is easier to field.

Much is made of the fact that Kent now has six straight years of 100 or more RBIs, the longest such streak ever for a second baseman. He had the second highest RBI total on Giants in 2002, outpacing the number-three man, Reggie Sanders, by 23. As the chart at the bottom of the players section shows, however, taking the year as a whole, Kent was not any more special in bringing runners home than first baseman J.T. Snow, third baseman David Bell, or catcher Benito Santiago. Kent's higher RBI totals seem to be more attributable to (1) batting himself in through homers, and (2) having more total RBI opportunities.

In the last two years, Kent has hit 19 home runs and 90 RBI at home, and 40 home runs and 124 RBI on the road. It is no wonder that he has talked so much trash about Pac Bell park, blurted out that he couldn't wait to leave it, and finally did leave for one of the parks most conducive to righthanded power. And after the crushing frustration of the dramatic loss in Game Six of the World Series, one report had Kent venting (yet again) to whoever was around in the almost empty locker room about how he couldn't wait to leave the accursed Giants. It seems that his dog-pie of a game seven, 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, revealed that he had indeed already left. In sum, after six seasons, one MVP award, 924 games, and 700 RBIs, the Jeff Kent chapter of the San Francisco Giants book is closed. It will remain to be seen if Dusty Baker, Barry Bonds, and the Giants brought out the best in Kent, as the second baseman's career numbers so far would suggest, or if they instead held him back from greater glory, as he himself sometimes claimed.

Benito Santiago, C (28.0)

The storyline that the announcers kept running during the postseason was straight out of an inspiring sports-bio book for boys from the early sixties. It goes like this: bunches of athletic skill as a young man, Rookie of the Year award, took his skills for granted, never lived up to his full potential, drank and partied too hard, and finally crashed his car and almost ended his athletic career. Then, newly sobered, worked harder than ever, and slowly crawled his way back to stardom again, perhaps better than ever.

Regardless of the lifetime story around it, fortunately for the Giants, Santiago in 2002 was much better than just about anyone expected. It was his best year at the plate in six years, and way better than his 2001 campaign. Santiago was named to the All-Star team, and he deserved it. No MLB catcher outside of New York had more RBIs. Many fans and experts questioned the two-year contract he signed at the beginning of the season, but it now looks like signing Santiago was an astute move by Sabean.

After 1,756 (regular-season) MLB games behind the plate, Santiago has good game instincts and knows enough to call a good game. His defensive skills in general and reflex speed in specific are slipping, but he is also certainly still more skillful than many other catchers much younger. Benito still often throws from his knees when runners attempt to steal on him, as he did when he was younger and his body was fresher. He still has decent success with it: 30.1% of baserunners thrown out in 2002.

The Giants' 2002 manger Dusty Baker perhaps shone best in the area of leadership and fire-in-the-belly setting. For example, during the one game early this season he stormed out on to the field and argued with an umpire until baserunner Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who had been called out, was reinstated at second base. It was the kind of thing the broadcasters said they had never seen before, and that brought a huge cheer from the Pac Bell crowd and smile to the Giants players' face. But there were few Giants field players who were willing to jump in and pump up the team energy in a similar manner this year. Aloof Bonds, and to a lesser extent smirking Kent, were the implicit Giants team leaders, but neither one of them were the type to try to fire teammates up, through speech or even by example.

Santiago, however, was one field player last year who was. He was willing to rally teammates when they were demoralized, and to jaw with an umpire and stand up for the team. An example was September 16 in San Diego, at the end of a frustrating and badly-umpired 4-1 loss, one the Giants could barely afford during a tight wild-card race. Santiago was thrown out of the game, and ended up with a suspension for allegedly bumping into home plate umpire Mark Hirshbeck while arguing. One could say, though, that Santiago's burst of passion helped shake the Giants up. It may have ignited the red-hot 11-1 run that the team began when their catcher returned from his brief suspension.

Besides the humbled and hard-working return of the self-indulgent prodigy, the other big made-for-TV storyline about Santiago this year was that he succeeded in the number-five lineup position. He allegedly stood tall where Snow and Sanders had failed, i.e., being the third RBI man batting after Bonds and Kent. Looking at the numbers, they do indeed seem to show that (1) Sanders wilted under the pressure of the number five spot, (2) Snow did his best to swing away as the number-five man but his best was still not good enough, and (3) that Santiago did indeed step up and become an RBI presence when batting fifth.

[Again, these numbers are prorated to 162 games. -- GP]

Santiago was trusted with the responsibility of batting fifth in the postseason. He OPSed .494 with the bases empty, and .839 with men on, and thus he was able to do his job and drive in a lot of runs, despite not batting well overall. He had 16 RBIs on 25 total-bases, which is an extraordinary ratio. His postseason percentages of baserunners brought home were high (38.5% of RISP, 22.0% of all baserunners -- good numbers: see "BASERUNNERS BROUGHT HOME" chart below). But part of his high RBI totals were, as one might guess, also because he came up to the plate with a good number of men on in front of him (0.811 baserunners-per-PA, and 0.365 RISP-per-PA, both high numbers -- see "BASERUNNERS BROUGHT HOME" chart below).

He also erased (through hitting into double plays) five of the postseason baserunners he inherited. Many fans probably remember the tense Game Four of the World Series, where Santiago came up in both the first and third innings with the bases loaded and one out, and promptly ended both innings with double-play balls, for a grand total of zero Giants' runs across the plate. Later that night Santiago said, "When I hit into the second double play, I didn't even want to go back to the dugout. I felt like jumping into the stands and sitting with the fans."

Santiago may have felt that way often since joining the Giants. His stroke is such that he often hits the ball exactly to the shortstop, hard enough that the ball gets to the fielder rapidly but not so hard that it would be difficult to pick, and with a smooth roll so that the ball doesn't bad-hop. It makes for a lot of GIDPs.

Total Giants GIDP, 2001-2002 (postseason included):

David Bell, 3B (26.2)

The one statistic which may most demonstrate David Bell's value is the following : the Giants of 2001 and Mariners 2002, two teams playing without him, totaled 182 regular season wins and 0 postseason wins. The Mariners of 2001 and Giants of 2002, two mostly equivalent teams but both playing with Bell manning third base, totaled 29 more regular season wins and 14 more postseason wins. A dispassionate analysis finds that Bell alone probably accounted for only a fraction of the difference, but the numbers still are striking. They lead to comments like those of Larry Bowa, said after Bell signed with Bowa's Phillies: "He cares about winning. This guy's a winning-type baseball player. He's going to make our team a much better ballclub."

I was one of many fans who was opposed to both the Estes-for-Shinjo-and-Relaford deal and the Relaford-for-Bell deal. In the first case, I thought that Sabean should have gotten more for a lefty starter with 19-5 and 15-6 seasons in his recent past, and in the second I thought that Relaford looked to be a .300-hitter-with-speed contributor while Bell looked like a nobody. However, Brian Sabean is "not an idiot." Both trades worked perfectly: Bell was a major player in the Giants' 2002 success and Shinjo contributed as well, while Estes salary cost a whole lot more than both of them as he went 5-12, and Relaford's slugging fell of 100 points from the year before. In retrospect, both trades turned out to be masterful.

Bell was absurdly consistent in 2002. It is impossible to break his year up into clear hot and cold streaks. In fact, in the last two years, his slugging percentage has been between .400 and .440 for eight of the 12 months of play, a level of consistency that is unusual.

Attention-paying fans may have questioned why Baker batted Bell at the tail-end of the order most of the regular season and all of the postseason. One could make the case that Bell was just as good in terms of bringing runners home (see "BASERUNNERS BROUGHT HOME" chart below) as most of the guys usually batting in front of him (Kent, Santiago, and Snow) and better than Sanders. Thus, one could say, Bell could easily have batted sixth or perhaps even fifth. And one could say that an even better place for Bell would have been batting second or even first, two spots he spent some time in during the first half of the season. The argument goes that Bell was suited for such spots, given that he makes decent contact, and had a better on-base percentage than many of the rest of the Giants' top of the order hitters.

However, looking at Bell's aggregate numbers from the last five seasons combined (1998-2002), it would appear that Baker made the right move in leaving his third baseman at the end of the order. Over that time period, Bell has done fine as a seven, eight, or nine hitter, positions he seems to be comfortable with. He has also done fine as a leadoff guy, although his 12 stolen bases in 26 total attempts shows that that is not the best place for him. He has however shown signs of wilting under the pressure of being a number-six RBI guy. He has also fallen apart in the number-two hole (which one would otherwise think of as a natural fit for him). Given that his walks are down in that spot relative to others, it could be perhaps tried too hard to play a role he is actually not suited to and not comfortable with.

Bell, 1998-2002 aggregated:

Two more things about Bell: he was amazing in the field, graceful and inspiring to watch. It is no wonder that he played a few games at second base and shortstop (two positions that require more skill than third base) for the Giants this year. And he always looked to me like he was about to burst into tears. Perhaps he was, sadly realizing that the Giants will probably miss his steady presence in 2003.

Reggie Sanders, RF (18.8)

By the end of 2002, it seems that many if not most Giants fans resented Reggie Sanders and were glad to see him go. I for one do not understand the bitterness.

I admit that watching Sanders was often frustrating. He flailingly swung at at least one pitch out of the strike zone seemingly every time up. And yes, he left a ton of runners on base. But I do not think that Sanders was terrible -- I think that he did fine. He sucked probably mostly in comparison with the expectations that we had of and the hopes that we had for him, that of another 2000-vintage Ellis Burks, a big right-field RBI bat in the number-five slot. You can certainly do worse than 2002-vintage Reggie Sanders, an outfielder with defensive range and offensive speed who slugged .455, however.

First the bad news: there was, of course, leading the team in strikeouts. And, batting fifth much of the season, behind Kent and Bonds, Sanders led the team in baserunners in scoring position inherited, with 229. He unfortunately brought an estimated 24.3% of them home (see "BASERUNNERS BROUGHT HOME" chart below), which was clearly worse than Snow, Kent, Bell, or Santiago, who all averaged 191 RISP inherited but brought home between 29.7% to 27.7% them. Sanders' 2002 performance in this regard was still better than 2001 with the Diamondbacks, where he only brought home an estimated 22.9% of the 170 RISP he inherited.

Given the characteristics of Pac Bell Park (see study below), players who hit better there than on the road are (1) likely to be righthanded, (2) rare, and (3) valuable to be Giants. Ramon Martinez was such a player, and Reggie Sanders may have been also. But it also looks like Reggie has hit better at home, no matter what the park is. The number next to each home park is the Baseball Prospectus' estimate of that park's effect on offense:

From these numbers, it is difficult to see where the disappointment with Sanders' 2002 performance springs from. I suppose that some may have hoped for him to have repeated his 33 homers from 2001, but he also played half his game in a good hitter's park that year. I suppose that some fans could have hoped that he would have had one of his surprisingly good years, like 1999. All in all, however, getting on into his thirty-fourth year and coming to a major pitcher's park, he performed about as well as one could have realistically expected.

Sanders came to San Francisco with a reputation as a majorly streaky hitter. For example, in 2001, when he served the Dark Forces of Arizona, he famously hit seven homers in six games during April, and then went homerless for the next 15 games. He continued this streakiness as a Giant:

Looking at that history, it seems that he started the season teasing Giants fans with a strong one-week performance only to negate it with an even more dramatically weak one-week performance. He then spent most of the rest of the season alternating between long strong hitting streaks and short slumps. He was injured and on the bench July 23 through July 28, but seems to have hit fine in the week after he returned. He slumped during the playoff series against his former team, the Braves, and also against St. Louis. He hit strongly, however, during the tough wild-card race stretch, and also collected a couple homers and a couple singles the first two games of the World Series. Although he went one-single-for-14-at-bats during the next five games against Anahiem, he looked comparatively calm and potent at the plate. One therefore wonders if there is any explanation besides big-game-overmanaging as to why Baker pinch-hit for his season-long starting right fielder with flyweight-hitting Tom Goodwin in the disappointing Game Seven loss.

Two final thoughts: Sanders led the Giants in taking one for the team in 2002, with 12 regular-season hit-by-pitched-balls. On TV, he looked to have special skills in the area, as if he knew just when and how to lean into a pitch, but he had never had more than eight in a season before this one so perhaps it was a fluke. Also: in the last seven season, the Giants have had 10 different guys play 25 or more games for them in right field, with only Ellis Burks holding any sort of stable position during that period. One hopes that 2001 first-round (sandwich round) draft pick Todd Linden will be ready soon to stabilize the revolving-door situation.

Rich Aurilia, SS (16.6)

Many people felt like Aurilia was ready to move into the elite inner circle of superstars after his impressive 2001 season. He hit for massive power and average while playing the toughest field position masterfully. He finished tenth in MVP voting, and some suggested that even that strong finish was probably lower than he deserved. They said that he had turned in one of the best seasons ever by a shortstop in relative anonymity. People who watched baseball carefully expected continued impressive things from Aurilia as he entered his thirtieth year -- perhaps not as great as 2001, but nonetheless strong.

And then came 2002. He burst out of the gate like 2001 all over again, six games of spraying doubles and singles at the plate and slick play in the field. Then, in the third inning of the sixth game of the season, on a sunny April Sunday afternoon, he whapped another powerful double. As he slid into second, however, he pulled his left groin badly. Rushed back to the lineup a week later, the lingering injury had him throwing off-kilter, and he developed bone chips in his elbow. Over the rest of the season, given his importance to the Giants, he started many games while not fully healthy. His hitting and his fielding both suffered as a result, leading to long slumps and plenty of strikeouts. He was zero-for-twelve batting with bases loaded in the year, with one measly RBI coming on a sacrifice fly.

Richie also spent plenty of time not playing, sitting on the bench resting and getting well. Thus, Ramon Martinez started 28 games at short in 2002. It is worth noting that watching the merely decent-fielding Martinez at short enables one appreciate Richie's skills as a shortstop. Aurilia is an excellent defender, but his skills are intelligent positioning and arm strength rather than flashy acrobatics. Again, his excellence is easy to overlook.

In any event, Aurilia's 2002 at the plate was about as streaky as a full-time MLB season can be:

So which was the real Rich Aurilia, the superstar who continued his white-hot 2001 by hitting .315/.363/.544 over 400 plate appearances spread through five different hot streaks, or the injured, flailing one who slunked through four cold streaks hitting an aggregate .166/.210/.251 in 250 plate appearances? The obvious answer is that both were the real Rich Aurilia in 2002, and both performances hold a key to his future performance. But knowing that (1) the cold streaks may have had something to do with injuries and overcompensations in response to injuries, and (2) seeing that Richie probably hit well when he was healthy, and (3) that he finished the season with a two-month-long hard-hitting streak throughout the stretch drive in September into the postseason in October, that all does show a lot of promise for next season (his last on his current contract) and beyond.

Kenny Lofton, CF (8.2)

Kenny Lofton hit a long fly out to the Edison Field center field at 7:46 PST pm on Sunday, October 27, 2002. Anahiem center fielder Darren Erstadt looked hyped up but focused in, and caught the flyball, and then bellowed as he sprinted towards the infield because his team had won their first ever World Series. The San Francisco Giants had played down to the last out possible of the MLB season, but, as Lofton dropped his head and walked back towards the visiting dugout, were going home empty.

It is appropriate, however, that Lofton made the last out of the Giants' season. The team was there at all, playing Gave Seven of the World Series, in part because of him. It is easy to forget how desperate things looked at the time that Lofton was acquired in late July. Three of the team's four best outfielders, including team centerpiece Barry Bonds, were down at the same time with hamstring injuries inflicted by some sort of treacherous tricks of the Dodgers' ground crew. The fourth, Marvin Bernard, had already been out for a month with severe knee trouble. By July 29, the team had just dropped five of seven games and was sinking fast. The starting outfield consisted of a rotation two light-hitting has-beens (Shawon Dunston and Tom Goodwin), one not-ready-for-the-majors minor-leaguer (Tony Torcato), and the team's backup shortstop (Ramon Martinez), and the team was not scoring many runs.

And then Lofton, the former all-around center-field-leadoff-hitter star, slowing and creaking but still skilled, arrived. He hit a home run in his first at-bat in a Giants uniform, giving a thrill to the dispirited players and fans. The Giants lost a few more games before all cylinders were firing, but the tide had been turned.

Lofton's impact was not entirely positive. He was pretty sucky at the plate on the whole during his first month on the team, especially not doing the thing that he was acquired to do (i.e., get on base). He was absolutely terrible at bringing baserunners home (see "BASERUNNERS BROUGHT HOME" chart below) for his whole tenure with the Giants. Also, he is not really a starting center fielder anymore, he doesn't have the range or arm that he once did. Finally, people claim that he is a remarkably difficult human being, and perhaps that had an impact in the club house.

However, all that aside, Lofton's hitting was absolutely a key to the team's 2002 success. During the stretch run against the Dodgers and the tough postseason, Lofton got on base and scored runs at a ferocious rate. His still-potent leadoff abilities were precisely the missing piece that the team's offense needed to kick into high gear.

[Again, these numbers are prorated to 162 games. -- GP]

And despite his poor overall RBI performance, it was still Lofton who drove in the ninth-inning run that defeated the Cardinals and won the NL pennant for the Giants, and he still drove in final RBI in the tight final playoff game against the Braves. Also, despite his reputation in the media as an asshole, he sure looked on TV as if he got along with his mates and helped keep the team loose.

When Shawon Dunston signed for two years at $1.1 million apiece at the beginning of the 2001 season, I thought that the signing was overall bad news but that adding a second year to the first was a disaster. And when Lofton signed with the White Sox at the beginning of the 2002 season for about the same amount, I found myself strongly wishing that we had been the ones to sign him, instead of wasting the same money on a second year of Dunston. Had that happened, San Francisco would have had a full year of Lofton's still-valuable contribution rather than half-a-year of it and a full year of Dunston's worthless suckiness. The Giants would still also have the talented fire-throwing prospect (Felix Diaz) that the team traded to the Sox to get Lofton in July. They say hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes things are clear at the time as well.

Yorvit Torrealba, C (8.1)

Torrealba came up with a reputation as being a decent defensive catcher, but of not being much of a hitter. Surprisingly, then, he actually hit pretty well in 2002: .279 with some doubles and some walks. He is still only 24, so assuming he can maintain that performance or improve it, he may well have some future value. He also scored points for looking bad-ass out there, in his full helmet catcher's headgear, his weightlifter build, and his marine recruit haircut.

Torrealba came up an estimated 39 times with baserunners on first base in 2002, and grounded into 11 double plays. That 28% of double-play-per-men-on-first by far lead the team, and frankly is an extraordinary number:

Percent of GIDP with Baserunners on First, Regular-Season Only, 2002

Ramon Martinez, IF (7.7)

There is a debate whether there is such a thing as "clutch hitting," i.e., coming though at the plate most when it matters most. When watching a game, it certainly seems like there is such a thing, and many if not most baseball fans think that there is. But statisticians have also analyzed the matter and found that most of what people call "clutch performance" is nothing more than random chance. If there is such a thing as clutch hitting, however, Ramon Martinez showed it in the regular 2002 season. When he came up with baserunners in scoring position, he brought home 43% of them, easily the best mark on the team (see "BASERUNNERS BROUGHT HOME" chart below).

After he slugged .487 in the 2000 season, there was talk that other teams were interested in extracting Martinez from his backup position behind Kent and Aurilia. These other teams were purportedly interested in giving him a starting job at second or short. The next year, however, due to injuries and the sudden departure of third baseman Russ Davis, it was the Giants that gave him almost a full season's worth of PAs, spread between all the infield positions. And Martinez' disappointing response, anemic hitting, and butchered fielding at third base, seems to have cost him his shot at a starting job, and probably a few million dollars in salary.

While Martinez' fielding numbers slid a little in 2002, it was a comeback year at the plate for him. He especially started the year strong: .304/.375/.430 in his first 90 plate appearances. He looked competent and capable at the plate, an impression underlined by the fact that his strikeout rate was one of the lower ones on the team:

Percent Strikeouts out of Total PAs (Regular and Post-Season Combined), 2002

Martinez was probably the best bat off the bench for the Giants in the 2002 postseason. He was not utilized much, however. Instead, the PAs for pinch-hitting, DHing, and spot starts went to the near-worthless Shawon Dunston, Tom Goodwin, and Pedro Feliz (who got on base only three of their 29 combined postseason plate appearances). Martinez failed to make use of the World Series opportunities that he was given, with two late-inning pinch-hit strike-looking-strike-looking-strike-three-swinging showings as a pinch hitter.

In May 2002 the excellent Baseball Prospectus writer Chris Kahrl reported that "Rich Aurilia is out for four to six weeks, and while the reflexive assumption should be that this should potentially blow the season for the Giants, I'm not quite so pessimistic. First, Ramon E. Martinez is a useful backup; the Giants will not be replacing Aurilia with some permanently worthless hitter like Rey Ordoñez or Neifi Perez, which you might normally expect." How unfortunately prescient. Martinez has now been flipped out to make room for Perez as the Giants' backup infielder for the 2003 season. This move makes little sense, given that Martinez (1) hits better than Perez, (2) has shown that he can hit in the difficult environment of Pac Bell, (3) costs much less ($800,000 per year for Martinez, $2.2 million for Perez) and is (4) comfortable with and ready for a backup role (unlike Perez, who seems to expect to start). I suppose that the factors of infield defense, speed, and a Dominican Republic connection with new manager Alou may be the attractions for Perez, but I for one am not sold.

Martinez belongs in the "E." hall of fame, along with Bun E. Carlos (drummer for power-pop legends Cheap Trick), Mark E. Smith (singer/ranter/ring-leader for post-punk band The Fall), and Wile E. Coyote (the Roadrunner's cartoon nemesis).

Marvin Benard, RF (2.5)

Benard averaged 14 home runs a season from 1999 to 2001, then totaled one in 2002. This was mainly due, of course, to missing over half the season with a severe knee injury, suffered on July 1. The Giants could have used him around, maybe hitting some of those missing homers, however. They could have used a healthy Marvin Benard when three other outfielders were injured in late July, and they felt compelled to trade a good pitching prospect to get Kenny Lofton. They could have used a healthy Marvin Benard when they were getting little production off the bench down the stretch, and they felt compelled to trade a decent pitching prospect to acquire Bill Mueller. And they certainly could have used a healthy Marvin Benard during the World Series, where their designated hitters and pinch-hitters OPSed .409. In sum, Marvin Benard is a decent hitter who has his uses, and the Giants could have used him last year.

He is not, however, worth his $4 million salary. He does not have a natural starting position -- he does not hit enough to be a starting right fielder, and he is dreadful defensively in center. He has poor routes, he jumps off the wrong way, and he makes copious mental errors. In the last couple of years, he has also tended to hit worse when he plays center -- he's a high-strung li'l guy and maybe the pressure of playing a position he isn't suited to (and the attendant booing) gets to him.

Some fans talk about playing him as part of a left/right platoon, but he actually does not show much of a lefty/righty split:

He does however evidence some other rather extreme split differentials. He has been a slow starter pretty much his whole major league career, and he doesn't hit well at the Phone:

If he's playing center field at Pac Bell in April, you might as well pinch-hit for Benard with your aunt. But playing right field on the road in August, he might outshine Barry.

Tsuyoshi Shinjo, CF (1.6)

As I said previously, I was opposed initially to the Estes-for-Relaford-and-Shinjo trade, but it ended up as a marvelous deal overall for the Giants. Anyway, Shinjo was probably acquired in that deal for several reasons. First, he is an amazing outfielder to watch, annoying little bunny hop right before he catches the ball notwithstanding: he is fast, smart, sure, graceful, and has a cannon arm. Also, the Giants had reason to believe that he might blossom into a decent hitter. A third reason was that he was cheap. Finally, he may have been acquired as a marketing opportunity to the sizable Bay Area East Asian community. The inordinate hype that accompanied his arrival, as well as the immense amount of Shinjo-themed schwag one could find in memorabilia shops at the start of the season, supports this theory.

Shinjo is also fast on the basepaths. His numbers from his 10 years(!) playing in the Japanese big leagues do not reflect many stolen bases. Apparently, however, honor in those leagues dictates that players steal in fewer situations, so those numbers fail to reveal his considerable speed. Dusty also seems to have an unspoken rule that his center fielder must bat leadoff, so he announced before the season that his fleet-footed samurai would bat leadoff.

Shinjo sucked at it. He sucked badly at it. He spent much of the start of the season flailing at the plate from the number-one spot, while playing wonderful, impressive defense. Many fans turned against him, some sooner and some later. They saw him as an impediment to the team's success, and eventually it seemed like the management did as well.

Shinjo has revealed through his two years in the American majors, however, that he can usually hit fine -- when placed in a batting position that he is comfortable in:

Tsuyoshi Shinjo, 2001-02