Jonathan Sanchez watch
Posted By Jeff Fletcher on February 11, 2009 3:52 pm
The most interesting Giants news, if you can call it that, to come out of today’s Treasure Island luncheon was this comment by Brian Sabean about the chances of trading Jonathan Sanchez.
“I just saw Sanchez (in Arizona) and he’s bigger and stronger, almost ready to pitch in games. I’d have a hard time thinking we could trade him for equal value. He’s the incumbent (for the No. 5 starter job). Noah (Lowry) is going to have to beat him out, and that’s the way it should be.”
That’s not really a surprise, because we all know how much everyone in the Giants organization is so enamored with Sanchez and those 95 mph fastballs, some of which actually find the strike zone.
Sabean added that he’s seen the throwing program the Puerto Rican team in the WBC would have for Sanchez, and he’s comfortable that Sanchez can still be ready.
Sabean also said that phenom Madison Bumgarner may sneak into a couple major league exhibition games, even though he’s not going to be in big league camp.
“This guy is on the fast track,” Sabean said. “We feel he’s every bit as good as the other people we’ve brought up.”
Finally, when owner Bill Neukom was asked about the status of Sabean and Bruce Bochy, each in the final year of his contract, he waffled nicely: “We think we have the best general manager and field manager in baseball… We’ll make decisions on what happens after the season after the season.”
Jeff, I can tell by your comments that you are less than thrilled with Sanchez, but I think that Johnson will be a good example for him to follow and hopefully a good guide to helping Sanchez with control and focus on the mound (that is if he is not traded). I would think that Lowry would not have as much trade value, since he has basically not pitched in a year, but the need to acquire a bat should force a trade, as it looks like Sabean is not going to acquire a bat thru free agency. Glad that Neukom is going to wait and see what kind of season the team has to judge Sabean since he has had more than enough time to right a ship that has been under .500 and out of the playoffs for 4 years and counting. I am surprised he has lasted this long.
I can’t seem to figure Sanchez out … some days I think he’ll end up as a solid #3 pitcher to Cain and Lincecum. On other days, he reminds me of Shawn Estes, a guy who could never really put it together because he was so inconsistent for most of his career. Sounds like Sabean is intent on proving Lowry’s healthy so that he can deal him … he should expect nearly the same value in return though as he would with Sanchez.
Why do you hate Sanchez so much Jeff?
Not sure what part of Jeff’s report indicates that he “hates” JS. Yes JS throws hard and yes he sometimes has a problem with the strike zone…but that is just reporting the facts. I didnt read anything more than that in his report. I am with the Gyros on this one. Gotta love a power pitcher and you gotta give them time to develop. I think Sanchez has electric stuff and would be disappointed if her were traded.
I don’t hate him. I just think he’s very iffy, and if I had a chance to trade him for a hitter who has done something, like an Uggla type player, I’d do it.
Jeff,
Uggla yes, Cantu no. And there lies the problem. We can get Cantu for Sanchez but we can’t get Uggla for him. We are better off keeping Sanchez if the likes of Cantu (as opposed to the likes of Uggla) is all we can get for him.
” some of which actually find the strike zone.”
Plenty of them find the strike zone. his career K/9 is 9.07. There are very few pitchers in the major leagues today who can strike out batters at that high a rate. And pitchers like that are a key ingredient of teams which are successful in the playoffs (see Baseball Prospectus’s “Baseball Between the Numbers”, the chapter on Why Billy Beane’s S**t don’t work in the playoffs).
In addition, he was a very dominating pitcher in the first half of 2008 then lost his gas at mid-season, most probably because he was relieving the previous two seasons and wasn’t conditioned to go that deep into the season as a starter. It is not like he was inconsistent, like Brad Hennessey, where he would pitch a good game then a horrible game.
He was consistently good for a long stretch of time in 2008. From his 2nd start to his last start before the All-Star game, he had a 3.53 ERA. And he had a large number of PQS DOM starts then too, at an elite level (read this for more info on PQS, especially check the link to BaseballHQ for an explanation of PQS: http://obsessivegiantscompulsive.blogspot.com/2008/10/2008-giants-september-pqs.html ), he had 10 dominating starts out of 18 starts, which is 56%, which only the elite pitchers can do over a full season. After that, he had 3 out of 10 or 30%. As it was, he still had a 45% dominating starts during the season, which only good pitchers can do.
Admittedly his disaster starts were too high, 31%, for the whole season, but during that good stretch, it was only 11%, which only the best can do.
Now, it is possible that the league figured him out after the ASG and that’s why he had his bad stretch. However, there are strong indicators that it was mainly bad luck (or, as some including I believe, a tired arm). In 47 IP, he still struck out 42 batters (8.0 K/9, still good rate, better than Cain) and his K/BB was 1.91 (just 2 strikeouts away from 2.00 which is where you want your starters to be or above). In addition, his BABIP was very high, .403, which is above the .300 league mean that most pitchers regress to the mean to. With a league average number of hits, he would have given up only 42 hits, not the 56 that he recorded.
Those are all reasons to highly anticipate Sanchez’s 2009 season and not to trade Sanchez yet, if ever.
But I agree, if we can get an Uggla for him, that would be great. Unfortunately, I’m betting that the Giants were horribly underwhelmed by the amount of talent being offered for Sanchez this off-season, and I’m glad that Sabean recognizes Sanchez’s potential value and stuck to his guns about only trading Sanchez if the Giants get equal (or better) value.