 |
| Graceful |
Coming into
the year, here’s what the general thoughts from Giants fans were about each of
the current Giants current outfielders:
Melky Cabrera:
Melky can be a funny pun!
Angel Pagan: Is
it Angel with the soft g or hard g? I hope it’s the hard g because those are my
favorite types of g's.
Gregor Blanco:
Did someone eat the ‘y’ off the end of his first name?
In short,
nobody really knew what to expect. The majority certainly did not believe any
of these guys were going to make a drastic enough impact to help a
catastrophically bad offensive team. And yet, here we are on June 21st
and these three outfielders have become integral pieces to the 2012 Giants. Here
were each of their numbers in May:
Melky Cabrera: .429/.457/.647
Angel Pagan: .375/.422/.462
Gregor Blanco: .315/.427/.457
Melky had one of the best months in Giants history, Pagan moved in to the 5th spot in the lineup because of how hot he was and Blanco solidified himself as the starting right fielder and leadoff hitter. People were ready to give Cabrera a 500000000000 dollar extension, with bonuses, and Blanco and Pagan were making some speculate that this could be a historically great Giants outfield. Brian Sabean was so happy, he smiled.
Unfortunately, June comes after May, which probably is something we should expect. Granted it's an arbitrary end point, but it's easy to split up numbers by month. In just 15-17 at bats less than May (except Cabrera, who had many more May at bats), here are their splits in June:
Melky Cabera: .333/.343/.478
Angel Pagan: .254/.284/.324
Gregor Blanco: .200/.250/.373
You can see the difference. Now people are ready to give Cabrera a 500000000000 dollar extension, with bonuses...Wait a sec... ok maybe not everybody was different, but otherwise I would have to name the piece, "Splitting Hairs with 2 out of the 3 Giants Outfielders" and nobody wants that. Melky has slowed down from his torrid pace that nobody not named Joey Votto can withstand, but he's still been a very valuable hitter. I'm certainly not advocating for a quick extension, because his numbers are tailing off and a full season will tell if Melky can at least keep up a pace similar to that of the first two and half months. He's not of concern right now though.
The other two are a different story. For all the praise they've received for being brilliant surprises, Pagan and Blanco have hit a wall since their hot May. And I mean hit it hard. The two are in a horrendous slump. Admittedly, I was one of the fans praising the job Brian Sabean did with this outfield. It's fun to look at small sample size success, yet when its small sample size ugliness, it's easy to look the other way. But if we're going to congratulate the players on how well they did in May, we should also criticize how bad they look in roughly the same amount of at bats in June. It's safe to say we've seen just about the best and worst of Pagan and Blanco at this point. The obvious question now is: which player are we going to see the rest of the way? The crappy one or the 'omg i luv him!' one?
Here's how both Pagan's and Blanco's 2012 season compares to their career average:
Angel Pagan:
2012: .300/.339/.431
Career: .281/.332/.420
Gregor Blanco:
2012: .254/.346/.402
Career: .257/.355/.340
For each player, the two sets of numbers are very similar, which means they're about where they should be for the season. With the exception of Blanco's power, each hitter is exactly what we should have expected them to be based on their career numbers. Going forward, fans should probably expect somewhere in the middle of each players May and June. That said, there's no reason to believe Blanco and Pagan can't still hit better than their career numbers and that they can improve this year. Pagan is 30 and Blanco is 28, and as Andres Torres and Ryan Vogelsong have taught us, nothing is predictable. Even if Blanco and Pagan hit their career averages, they will still help this offense along with the emergence of Brandon Belt. Still, it's interesting how much of a roller coaster their seasons have been.
Gregor Blanco did this though, which probably give's him a 'you can't criticize me' clause for the next billion years of Giants baseball.
<3 u Gregor.
No comments:
Post a Comment