Today, the common baseball fan wakes up from his winter hibernation. Eleven teams will start their workouts today in preparation for the 2011 season.
This is sure to be a season filled with great teams, great players, great games, and great moments. But there are still lots of questions to be answered during the season.
Is there such thing as a World Series hangover? Do the Giants need to add talent in order to bolster their chances at a repeat? Is Pablo Sandoval the guy that might make all the difference?
These questions and many others will eventually define the season for the Giants in 2011, similar to almost every other team’s quest for the trophy.
San Francisco will just have to wait until all the pieces fall into place before an accurate judgment can be made. Until then, lets look at some pitfalls that may be a deterrent in the Patriots-like repeat journey that is the upcoming 2011 baseball campaign.
Nearly ever kid dreams of growing up and becoming a professional athlete. However, this dream does not come true for over 99.9% of children. However, in the MLB, there are numerous players that look like they have no business being a professional. Regardless of their looks or size, these players have proved with their skills that they are deserving of their jobs.
Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.
Prior to 2010, Tim Lincecum made tremendous strides in each of his first three seasons on his way to becoming the game’s most dominating pitcher. From 2007 to 2009, Tiny Tim improved his K/9, BB/9, HR/9, batting average against, ERA and WHIP each season.
Lincecum experienced a setback in all six categories in 2010, however, and was even relegated to spot-start status after allowing 22 earned runs in 25.1 innings last August.
So what happened to the two-time Cy Young award winner?
Two things stand out. First, his decline in average fastball velocity:
Second, and more surprisingly, is the difference in Lincecum’s curveball from 2009 to 2010:
Only three other pitchers (Randy Wolf, Dave Bush and John Lackey) had less effective yackers in 2010.
There are, however, reasons to believe The Freak can bounce back in 2011. Despite all of his struggles last season, Lincecum remained among the league leaders in “nastiness”:
Also, Lincecum’s changeup was third-best in the majors, at 16.9 runs above average.
In fact, if you throw out last August (a month which saw Lincecum fall victim to a .387 BABIP and 59.0 left-on-base rate), his season ERA would have been a cool 2.79—a far cry from his actual total of 3.43.
All things considered, it’s reasonable to expect the 26-year-old Freaky Franchise to bounce back in 2011. Draft him as the third starting pitcher, behind Roy Halladay and Adam Wainwright.
| IP | W | K/9 | BB/9 | ERA | WHIP | |
| 2010 stats | 212.1 | 16 | 9.79 | 3.22 | 3.43 | 1.27 |
| 3-year average | 221.2 | 16 | 10.25 | 3.09 | 2.83 | 1.16 |
| 2011 FBI Forecast | 221 | 17 | 10.00 | 3.00 | 2.90 | 1.16 |
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In Major League Baseball today, fans are privileged to see several star hitters and pitchers square off every season.
The MLB schedule allows every team in their respective league to play each other, while mixing in inter-league play in the middle of June.
In 2011, the Boston Red Sox and their potent lineup will try to dismantle the Philadelphia Phillies, who have perhaps the best starting pitching staff on paper since the Atlanta Braves of the mid 90’s.
Aside from the prime sluggers and Cy Young candidates, 2011 refreshes bitter rivalries between New York Yankees great Alex Rodriguez and Athletics ace Dallas Braden; and Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips Vs. Cardinals youngster Jaime Garcia.
It was difficult to narrow the list of premiere match-ups down to 20, but the following hitter-pitcher duels will surely cause headlines…
Sweet Lou is coming to the City by the Bay. Yep, that barrel-chested man famous for profanity-laced on-field tirades has been hired as a special consultant to San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean.
On the surface, this appears like another Sabean genius move. Pick up a smart baseball mind, particularly one with an offensive lens on the game, to complement what has become a pitching-heavy club.
On the other hand, Lou’s been in the dugout for the last 40 years, which means showing up at game time in street clothes will be an unfamiliar role for him.
Piniella’s arrival in San Francisco begs the obvious question: How might Lou help (or hurt) the Giants’ chance to repeat as World Champs?
First, five reasons why Piniella will be a boon for the Giants’ chances to repeat in 2011.
1. He knows the game as well as anyone, and his experience as a position player will come in handy as the Giants struggle to find the right lineup with the chemistry needed to win games down the stretch and in the playoffs like the 2010 team.
2. He’s won in the postseason (including twice as a player with the Yankees and once as a manager, guiding the 1990 Reds to a World Series title over the favored Oakland A’s), so he’s got some good pattern recognition when it comes to what needs to come together on the field and in the clubhouse for a team to win it all.
3. He can be a great sounding board to Bruce Bochy and someone the current Giants skipper can trust as a guy who’s not there to take his job if the team starts scuffling around the All-Star break.
4. He can be a great sounding board to Brian Sabean, particularly in the context of deciding which of the Giants farmhands down in Fresno might be able to have the kind of impact Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner had on the team last season.
5. He will add another personality to an already personality-rich organization, whether it’s as a post-game guest with the KNBR Radio crew or on CSNBayArea’s TV coverage. Lou will be a great ambassador for Giants baseball and someone who can help deflect some of the heat that would be directed at Bochy or the players if things hit a rough spot during the year.
Now, despite all of the positive points above, there at least five good reasons why Piniella’s presence could hurt the Giants’ chances of winning in 2011.
1. He’s never been a guy who minces words, so it’s not clear he’ll understand when he’s supposed to be toeing the “company line.” Imagine the first time he gets quoted questioning one of Bochy’s game decisions or one of Sabean’s player personnel decisions.
2. He’s a former Rookie of the Year and All-Star, so what happens when he’s roaming around the field before games? What if he decides to help Buster Posey tinker with his swing during a slump? That won’t exactly go over well with Giants coaches.
3. He may show up one day a bit confused and put on a uniform, walk in to the dugout and start filling out the line up card and then waltz out to home plate to go over the ground rules with the umpiring crew. I’m guessing that one would create a bit of an issue for the Giants.
4. See No. 2 above, but imagine this time he mentally shifts back to his days managing the Reds when he probably thought he was the genius behind the Nasty Boys’ pitching success, and he decides to start giving Tim Lincecum a few pointers on his mechanics. I can just see Dave Righetti and Lincecum’s dad Chris gang-tackling Lou out by the bullpen mound.
5. By all appearances recently, Lou looks like a healthy eater. San Francisco is not an easy town on healthy eaters…in fact, it’s down right unfair. There’s some real risk here that Lou gets distracted running around town from great restaurant to great restaurant, and he doesn’t stay focused on the job at hand: advising Sabean. I can see it now, Lou showing up late to a meeting with Sabean and Bochy and explaining, “But guys, I’ve never even heard of pumpkin creme brulee, I just had to try it!”
Giants fans, enjoy your season of Lou!
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Coming off their first World Series championship in 56 years, the San Francisco Giants are flying high. They return the bulk of their squad and aim to make another championship run in 2011.
How do the Giants size up heading into spring? Read on to find out.
Opening Day 2011 is less than two months away, and Spring Training will begin in less than three weeks. Last year’s successes are now a thing of the past. Teams now look ahead to focus on a having a successful 2011.
The foundation for any good team is good starting pitcher. While some teams like the Phillies are blessed with an abundance of great starting pitching, others like like the Pirates will struggle to field even one Major League-level starting pitcher.
With the start of the new season, teams will look to get off to a good start and send their best pitcher to the mound on Opening Day. The following will rank all 30 teams based on their Opening Day (projected) starting pitchers.
You read who I thought were the 10 best hitters in baseball entering the 2011 season, and now here’s a list of the 10 best pitchers in baseball.
This is a very tough list to make because there is so much good pitching these days, but these 10 stand out above all. You could have made a ranking of the top four pitchers in the game and listed every Phillies starter but that would’ve been too easy.
Which pitchers are the most dominant, who you always expect to carry their team to a win when they take the mound? Here’s a list of the 10 best pitchers in baseball, with nine of them being starters.
It appears as though a subtle paradigm shift has occurred. Teams are starting to become more defensive oriented-the balance of power in the league has shifted back over to the pitchers. The generation of this league full of pitchers, some already star and some knocking on the door to stardom.
Here is a look at the top 10 pitchers and the ballparks they may be most comfortable pitching in.