Re-assesing Angel Pagan and the Giants Offense

Saluted

Back in July, I wrote this about Angel Pagan. It wasn’t an especially scathing piece but it didn’t exactly paint Angel Pagan as Josh Hamilton, an analogy that will be seem a lot less exaggerated in a minute. To summarize, I basically concluded that Angel Pagan’s overall value was somewhere around Nate Schierholtz. The post was written during the deepest darkest days of Angel Pagan in a Giants uniform. He was hitting like a blindfolded Todd Linden after 7 bottles of 5 hour energy. So, all in all my final thought was that Nate Schierholtz should have been starting instead of Angel Pagan. This is because I don’t know sports.

Angel Pagan has now completed a full season. Just to further self deprecate myself, let’s see what he’s hit since I wrote that piece on July 18^th:

.288/.345/.480, 10 3B

It’s clear that he used the article as motivation. Sufficed to say, he stopped sucking. In a big way. He obliterated the Giants franchise triples record and teamed up with Marco Scutaro to save the world.

Overall, his fWAR in 2012 finished at 4.7. That’s the same fWAR as Josh Hamilton. Angel Pagan has the same WAR as Josh Hamilton. Prince Fielder has a 5.0 fWAR. Angel Pagan is close to the same WAR as Prince Fielder. Angel Pagan has around the same WAR as Prince Fielder and Josh Hamilton. Angel Pagan’s baseball value in 2012 has been almost equal to that of Prince Fielder and Josh Hamtilton. Come again?

WAR is by no mean an exact measurement, especially when it comes to defensive value. But in contrast to what Rob Parker would lead you to believe, it’s the best stat there is in terms of judging overall value. Josh Hamilton may not be the exact same value as Angel Pagan this season, but the stat implies that the two have been in the same performance tier of baseball players in 2012. Same with Prince Fielder. Two guys that hit a combined 73 home runs. That's pretty darn remarkable to say the least.

He was supposed to be streaky, but then he got on a streak and in fraternity hazing fashion, kept streaking. And it's not like this season can be season as a fluke. Angel Pagan has been one of the most underrated players in baseball. He entered the bigs in 2008, and it's probably okay to throw his rookie season out the window because he was ironing out the kinks. In 2009, he accumulated a 2.9 fWAR in just 376 plate appearances. In 2010, his first full season, his fWAR went up to 5.5. His 2011 season went straight to the crapper, but there may have been unspecified reasons for it. It's possible that instead of 2010 being the unordinary good season, which I thought before, 2011 was an outlier bad season. He was injured his oblique at the start of it and, this is just speculation, that could have lingered throughout the year. Whatever the case, after a season like this, it's pretty clear who Angel Pagan is, and it's a good and underrated Angel Pagan.

And as I said earlier, this hot streak coincided with Marco Scutaro’s brilliant performance. And not coincidentally, it coincided with the Giants offensive outburst. How good was the Giants offense you ask? Fantastic question! Here’s how they ranked in the national league in 2012 in these categories:

Weighted Runs Created: 3^rd

Weighted On Base Average: 6^th

Adjusted OPS: T-1^st (!!!!!)

Runs: 6th

What. I mean... Coming into the season, I wanted the Giants to be an average offense. Just no more lineups like this. Basically, coming into the season, we just wanted a lineup that didn't have Brett Pill setting up Orlando Cabrera. That’s where the expectations were.  At the end of the season the scene was basically Pablo Sandoval standing on a deserted island with no supplies and looking sad as Carlos Beltran was picked up by a private jet flown by Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman, who escorted him to civilization. Pablo had nothing. All Pablo could do was look at the stars, cuddle with Aubrey Huff and hope for the best. We’ve all been there.

Then others came! First, Melky Cabrera brought a mansion that he never paid rent for, but it was a nice place until the bank foreclosed the shit out of it. That was sad. But there were others.

Angel Pagan brought a fruit basket with heart shaped strawberries.

Buster Posey paid rent for Melky’s house and then added 5 T.V.’s, a theatre, and created a unicorn sanctuary in the backyard.

Marco Scutaro washed ashore and gave out free money.

Hunter Pence arrived late and brought the entire Full House series on DVD, which nobody liked at first but after a while decided “Ya know what, Uncle Jesse is a family man after all!”

Also Brandon Belt was in the corner trying to make fire with a couple twigs. He worked at it, but then said screw it and bought a lighter.

Also Buster Posey raised a unicorn and trained it to make fun of Shane Victorino. 

What are we talking about again?

All that’s a long and stupid way of saying the Giants offense has been solid and considering where it was last season, the change is pretty remarkable. Perhaps the extreme level of performance the last few weeks has been a little flukey, but it’s safe to assume this is an above average lineup. Which is weird to say. And now that it’s the playoffs, I expect nothing less than that. I may have just jinxed everything, but that can’t take away from the fantastic offensive season that nobody expected. Here is my formal apology to Angel Pagan and the offense. Here is your gif(t). I salute you Angel Pagan.