Five stats that stick out from Giants' up-and-down April
Five stats that stick out from Giants' up-and-down April originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants couldn't have asked for a better runway in April.
They capped a huge offseason with the addition of the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, and while there's been a lot of travel thus far, they have played just four games against teams that are currently in a playoff position. With the Warriors bowing out early, the stage was set for the Giants to recapture hearts and ticket sales with a hot start.
Instead, they have been ... fine?
They're two games under .500 through April, but also in second place in the NL West. They look like geniuses for acquiring Jordan Hicks and putting him in the rotation, but also have yet to win a game behind Blake Snell, who is currently on the IL.
If you go to a game at Oracle Park, it's not hard to see that Jung Hoo Lee has already become a fan favorite, but overall the team's style of play hasn't been that much more inspiring than last year's brand.
On Sunday, manager Bob Melvin summed it up as "spotty" baseball. That's the perfect way to put it.
"You look at the stats across the board, whether it's pitching numbers, whether it's offensive numbers, it hasn't been great," he said. "But to sit here right at .500 or a game below and we know there's a lot more in there, it's not a horrible place to be. Nobody is really running (away) in our division too much. Our travel has been a little tough, we've got another East Coast trip and another one after that. At some point in time, we'll hit our stride."
The Giants have been outscored by 21 runs through 30 games, but they're also just two games out of a playoff spot at the moment. It's been, well, "spotty," but Melvin remains confident that much better days are ahead. As he waits for things to kick into gear -- or just for the first three-game winning streak -- here are some stats that stood out, and taught us a bit about this team, through an up-and-down first month:
0.5
That's Nick Ahmed's fWAR through 28 games, which shows that the Giants are getting solid contributions -- mostly on defense, where advanced metrics once again ranked Ahmed as one of the game's best shortstops -- from a late addition to camp. Ahmed is on pace to nearly match his combined fWAR from his previous four seasons combined.
That's the good news. The downside is that Ahmed currently leads the Giants' offensive newcomers in Wins Above Replacement.
What stands out early on is that the Giants haven't gotten what they expected out of Jorge Soler and Matt Chapman. Soler has a .714 OPS and his struggles with runners in scoring position led to him finishing April with just eight RBI despite having five homers. Chapman has been as advertised defensively, but he has a .267 OBP and his wRC+ places him below league average as a hitter for the first time in his career.
Lee rates well defensively and is truly elite when it comes to bat-to-ball skills. If he can get the ball in the air more, he should be the best of the bunch, but overall the Giants expected a bit more from a vaunted free-agent class.
600
Last season, there wasn't a single Giant who reached 550 plate appearances, and only three -- J.D. Davis, Thairo Estrada and LaMonte Wade Jr. -- saw enough time to qualify for MLB leaderboards. Melvin is still platooning in right field and at first base for the most part, but overall he has preached stability and patience. It is essentially the same lineup every day, with the notable shifts having more to do with where guys like Soler and Chapman are hitting rather than who actually is starting.
There are currently four Giants on pace for at least 600 plate appearances, something only one player -- Wilmer Flores in 2022 -- did under Gabe Kapler. The leader so far is Chapman, who has appeared in all 30 games and is on pace for 670 plate appearances, which would be the most by a Giant since Hunter Pence played all 162 games a decade ago.
A large segment of the fanbase wanted the constant lineup tinkering to stop, and the Giants have certainly gone back to the Bruce Bochy Era with the way veterans are handled. But this also might be a bit of a "careful what you wish for" situation. Stability is only a good thing if the players who are in there on a daily basis are performing.
1.55
That's the difference in ERA between Giants starting pitchers (3.82) and the bullpen (5.37). The starters' ERA would be a lot lower if you take out Snell's three starts, and the bullpen is mostly paying for young pitchers getting blown apart in games the Giants are trailing, which has become an early trend that Melvin wants to see reversed. You can't get many comeback wins if every two-run deficit turns to six or seven runs when you hand the ball to your lower-leverage arms.
The rotation should get better over the next 132 games. Snell is a notoriously slow starter, and while Alex Cobb continues to have setbacks, the Giants do expect him back this summer, along with Robbie Ray. But they have some work to do to figure out a long-term bullpen plan.
Camilo Doval is perhaps embracing "torture" a bit too much, but he remains one of the game's best closers. Ryan Walker looks poised to step into the setup role, although Tyler Rogers won't give that up easily. After some shakiness early on, he has allowed just one run over his last eight appearances.
It's the middle innings that Melvin needs to figure out. Erik Miller has the stuff to be part of the solution and Landen Roupp certainly looked a lot better Tuesday when he mixed in his changeup for the first time. There are plenty of young arms in Triple-A and Double-A who are throwing well.
At the big league level and in the upper minors, the Giants have more than enough quality arms to put together a very good pitching staff. But the bullpen hasn't gelled so far and the Giants will need that group to be better, because this offense is going to put them in a lot of close games.
3, 4, 5
Those are the current ranks for Keaton Winn, Logan Webb and Hicks in groundball percentage. Webb led the Majors last year at 62.1 percent, and Winn (60.2) is nearly there in his second big league season. Hicks has been a revelation, posting a 1.59 ERA with a 59.6 groundball percentage. He ranks 10th among NL pitchers in fWAR and looks like one of the steals of the offseason.
The Giants put together a staff of pitchers who rely on groundballs and then backed them with Chapman, Ahmed and Thairo Estrada, who is second in MLB in Outs Above Average since the start of last season and should have gotten Gold Glove consideration last year. It was a good plan on paper, and it has looked brilliant through 30 games.
Hicks, Winn and Kyle Harrison will have their innings cut back at some point, but at the moment it looks like a long-term rotation is taking shape. Webb is signed through 2028, Hicks is in year one of a four-year deal, and the other two are rookies. If they can stay healthy, that's a hell of a starting point for the franchise every spring.
55.2%
That's Patrick Bailey's sweet-spot percentage, and it pretty easily leads the league. Freddie Freeman is the only other player above 50 percent.
Statcast defines this as any batted-ball event with a launch angle ranging from eight to 32 degrees, and ideally, a hitter will combine a high sweet-spot percentage with a high hard-hit percentage. Those are a lot of words to say simply, hit the ball hard and get it in the air at an angle that can do damage. Bailey is in the 87th percentile in hard-hit percentage, too.
That combination is a major reason why the second-year catcher is hitting .280 and has a wRC+ of 130, which ranks second to Wade among Giants regulars. Bailey still could cut his strikeouts a bit, but he's down five percent from his rookie year and he has nearly doubled his walk rate. It certainly looks like he's taking a second-year leap as a hitter, and when you combine that with his defensive prowess, you have a franchise cornerstone and someone who could be an All-Star in July.
The caveat here is that Bailey got off to a red-hot start last year, too, but the Giants believe he's better positioned to keep it going as a sophomore. He put on weight in the offseason to keep from breaking down and they have been aggressive in getting Tom Murphy starts, although that might change if the veteran backup -- currently batting .074 -- doesn't dig out of his early hole.
The Giants committed more than $300 million to free agents in the offseason, but so far, by both versions of Wins Above Replacement, their most valuable position player has been the 24-year-old who was one of last year's best stories.
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