(things looked worse a year ago than do they today; a year ago, here were my thoughts)
The Giants moved Ray Durham over the weekend in what hopefully is the beginning of a full scale "our lease wasn't renewed, everything must go - we must be maniacs to deal at these low, low prices" firesale. We're 40-58. There's blood on the tracks.
Everyone older than Matt Cain out the door.
Front office included.
San Francisco's had 18 primary second basemen, they are listed below. Joe Strain and Joe Straint variants are not listed; I've assigned a second basemen for each season of San Francisco Giants baseball with his WARP3 total while a Giant (not necessarily just at 2B) and his best season(s) as a Giant.
Why?
'Cause I feel like it. Go Giants!
RAY DURHAM
2003-08
27.9
2003 (6.5)
-Durham's career WARP is in the mid 80s, but his six best seasons were with the WSox.
JEFF KENT
1997-2002
58
2002 (12.3) 2000 (12.1) 2001 (10.5)
-Obviously, he'll be on my list of the 200 greatest players in major league history and he should go to the HOF. He's the greatest SFG second baseman ever.
ROBBY THOMPSON
1986-96
57.2
1993 (9.7)
-Robby's second. Kent just exceeded Thompson's value as a Giant. Thompson's 4 best seasons are all better than any Durham year in SF.
MANNY TRILLO
1984-85
4.4
1984 (2.2) 1985 (2.2)
-A terrible baseball player. His career WARP3 in a 17 year career was 37.1 He was 6500+ plate appearances of lousy. He got 505 plate appearances for the '85 Giants and (untranslated) his OBP was .287 and he slugged .288. This is why performance analysis is a good thing - it isn't that these metrics weren't valued in 1985 as they are today so Trillo should only be evaluated on his batting average (which was .224 in '85, so who was he foolin', exactly? - I'm looking at you Jimmy Davenport) its that many in positions of power (front office and media) didn't recognize what it was that made someone a good baseball player. We have all of these sportswriters (and Steve Hirdt) spouting this nonsense about how "feared" Jim Rice was. We don't need to talk in cliches - we have data. We can see what actually happened - and we could see it then too - it's not like they are declassified Societ memoranda - we don't need John Gaddis to explain (wrongly explain, I might add) the Cold War to us in hindsight, the numbers existed then, had you read Bill James, you wouldn't have given Manny Trillo 505 plate appearances and you may not have lost 100 games.
That's not presentist speak - I was reading Bill James in 1985 - we didn't have WARP3, but I knew Manny Trillo was an out machine.
There's no excuse for baseball executives and opinion makers, in 2008, not to understand what happens on a baseball field. Just today, literally this very day on Mike&Mike I heard Buster Olney criticize Alex Rodriguez for "meaningless hits."
You know what was a meaningless hit? "Ray of Light". Alex Rodriguez is a legend. Do your job.
DUANE KUIPER
1982-85
2.5
1982 (1.9)
-Kuip split time with Brad Wellman in '83; since he's become a professional orange and black wearer, I thought he'd be the one to make the list. He was bad.
JOE MORGAN
1981-82
14.6
1982 (8.5)
-Joe Morgan's one of the half dozen greatest second basemen who ever lived and the greatest player from the Big Red Machine. He was a pretty good Giant too. That 8.5 was his best year since '77 and his last good season. It was the 9th best season of his career. And he hit that one home run. You remember. There's nothing he could say that is so wrongheaded that would change any of that. He unfortunately doesn't understand the very metrics which place him as such an elite all time ballplayer.
RENNIE STENNETT
1980-81
.3
1980 (.4)
-Not a typo. Rennie Stennett got 400+ plate appearances in 1980 and put up a WARP3 under 1.0. Why am I doing this list? Because the San Francisco Giants have never (and will never, at least in my lifetime - and no, that's not quantitative, I'm just venting) won a World Series and these are some of the reasons why - 400+ plate appearances to Rennie Stennett and his .4 WARP3 in 1980. Kent's 2002 year was the best ever for a SFG second baseman - this was the worst.
BILL MADLOCK
1977-79
12.7
1978 (8.2)
-He finished 18th in the NL MVP balloting in '79 despite a combined WARP3 of only 5.4 with us and the Pirates. Power of winning a title, I guess. Had a good WS, 9-24, 5 walks. Wasn't special, but was a damn sight better than Stennett. Jebus.
ROB ANDREWS
1977-79
3.2
1977 (1.3)
-I was 6 years old in 1977, it's the very first Giants team of my memory. And they gave me 500 plate appearances of Rob Andrews and his 1.3 WARP3. I shake the fist at you Joe Altobelli! Shake the fist!!!
DERREL THOMAS
1975-77
7.8
1975 (4.3)
-We got by far the best year of Thomas's awful career in '75 - and then got stuck with him in '76. Second base was a goddamn horror show at the Stick.
TITO FUENTES
1965-74
30.9
1973 (7.3)
-Fuentes had the job in '67 - and then from '71-75, before the shift to Thomas - almost half of his career value was in that early 70s run at second base. Fuentes's Giants WARP3 is just higher than Durham's, but it took him 4 more years and he played some short and third in that run - were you ranking, you'd have to put Fuentes behind Durham for pure second base production in SFG history, but Tito did have a higher Giants WARP3 overall.
RON HUNT
1968-70
17.4
1968 (8.4)
-Hunt was underrated, his career WARP3 approximates Thompson's and he was a better Giant than Madlock. Dude could get on base, he had a .400+ untranslated OBP his first year out of San Francisco - if he had spent his whole career as a Giant he'd be Robby T.
HAL LANIER
1964-71
24.7
1969 (4.1)
-Lanier had the job at second from '64-'66, before giving way to Fuentes, who then gave way to Hunt, who provided competence at the position - Lanier moved to short and did 4 years as the SFG starter there, where he had a little more value, given the defensive+ of being able to field that position.
CHUCK HILLER
1961-65
10.2
1962 (6.1)
-Hiller had no career - except for '62, when he was the 4th best Giant on a 103 winning NL championship team.
JOEY AMALFITANO
1960-61, '63
5.6
1960 (3.1)
-Also played 45 games back in '54 and '55 - meaning that Amalfitano's got a ring. It's '61 where he was the starter, and he couldn't play - he's Hiller without the career year.
DON BLASINGAME
1960-61
4.3
1960 (4.2)
-This run of guys, man. The 60s were rough, until Hunt, we had one season where a second baseman had a WARP3 over 5.0 - and that was the fluke okayish/goodenough year by Hiller. It wasn't until Hunt that we had anything approaching good play from second - then a couple of good enough seasons from Fuentes - then we had to wait for a good season by Madlock - wait a little more for a good season from Morgan - and eventually Thompson shows up. No wonder he was so well liked in town - if you can put a decade of okay numbers after 30 years of musical mediocrity, that's enough to get you a statue. Blasingame never got close to the promise he showed in St Louis.
DARYL SPENCER
1958-59
16.2
1958 (8.3)
-Why the hell did we move Daryl Spencer? I don't mean the positional move - he was the Giant shortstop in '58 and then moved to second in '59 - but why did we move him to the Cardinals for Blasingame? It took us a decade to find a second baseman as good - now, Spencer fell off the table once he left - his best North American days were in San Francisco, making it hard to knock the move too violently - but we don't sniff his 7.9 WARP3 as the '59 second baseman until '68 with Hunt - and then no one reaches that again until '78 with Madlock. 20 years of subpar second sack seasons. The Curse of Spencer.
DANNY O'CONNELL
1958-594.7
1958 (4.6)
-Your first SFG second baseman. Eh.
So, what have we learned.
The best 3 seasons for a SFG second baseman were all Kent's from 2000-02. Then Thompson's '93. Then Kent's '98; rounding out the top 5 is Morgan's 1982, as Spencer's best year was as a SS.
Jeff Kent, clearly, is the greatest SFG second baseman ever. Robby Thompson is second. Ray Durham is third. We say goodbye to Ray Durham.
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