| Christopher Reina. 13th August, 2008 - 3:14 pm
 'Striking Out' is a new edition to RealGM's baseball pages this season which will touch on three of the most pressing issues (good, bad, and ugly) for all 30 major league teams.
1. Cain?s overshadowed season
Cain had a 3.65 ERA with a laughably unfair 7-16 record last year in 32 starts.
He has been famously overshadowed by the improbable brilliance of Tim Lincecum, which has made Cain?s season be unappreciated.
Cain is 19th among starters in season FIC, which is a statistic heavily weighted by wins and losses, and every starter ahead of him has double-digit wins compared to his seven.
Cain is fourth in the NL in strikeouts with 148, giving him a K/9 rate of 8.22, which easily beats his mark last season of 7.34. His command has been much better, which has allowed him to comfortably go deeper into games.
He has been especially effective of late, posting a 2.27 ERA over his five second half starts thus far while not yielding a single long ball.
2. Pause the John Bowker experiment
Bowker surprisingly hit homers in consecutive days against the Cardinals in early April, and the Giants were ready to anoint him their slugger of the future and feel vindicated for ?going young.?
He has hit seven more along the way but none since he took Ryan Dempster deep on July 2nd.
His slugging percentage is under .400, and his OBP is under .300; neither of which makes him a qualifier as a player for the future.
Over his past 20 games, only teammate Jose Castillo has been a less productive hitter in the entire big leagues as he has a -18 FIC.
He is batting .152/.222/.212 in the second half of the season and it getting extremely difficult to remain patient with such an unproductive hitter.
I like the commitment to going young and rebuilding the lineup, but it is more difficult than flipping a switch if genuine talent isn't there.
3. Lincecum?s one-year deals
The Giants will have Lincecum under their control through the 2013 season but instead of opting for the security of a mutually favorable extension that puts him through his arbitration years similar to what Noah Lowry signed, he will take a year-to-year approach.
If he?d want an extension I?m certain the Giants would love to make him happy, but his decision not to is a move that is actually advantageous to the Giants.
Much has been made with Lincecum?s durability issues, and even though I expect his unique mechanics to withstand the test of time, making him prove it and keeping him hungry are both pluses for the franchise and, to a certain extent, ?The Franchise.?
He has a 3.06 ERA in the second half, which is higher than his first half 2.57, but he has elevated his strikeout rate, fanning 47 in 32.1 innings.
- Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM and the creator of the Reina Value. |
