Tuesday Links

- Andy Baggarly had a chance to talk to Fred Stanley, one of the Giants' roving minor league instructors, who updated him about some notable names in the farm system.

Of note: Stanley envisions that Nick Noonan could skip straight to Double-A. Noonan surpassed expectations this year at Low-A by posting a .283 average. If all goes well, Noonan conceivably could be up in the big leagues by 2010.

Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner are impressing at San Jose and Augusta, respectively. Baggarly added a comment that he's heard from several people that if Alderson could add a couple more ticks on his fastball, he would have Kevin Brown stuff. Speed is nice, but it's just gravy with exceptional command. If he can locate his pitches, which he can, then he doesn't need to throw 95-mph every time out.

As for Bumgarner, a quotation from BP's Kevin Goldstein will suffice:

He's not only the best prospect in the Giants system, but rates as one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball.

- Chris at Bay City Ball applies WAR (Wins Above Replacement) to the Giants' starting rotation. Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez make up one of the best young, talented, and cheap trios in the majors; the sum of their actual salaries only totals to $1.5 million, while $WAR values their performances at a total of $48.93.

Overall, the net value of the starting rotation is $33.67 million -- pretty good considering the value sinkhole that is Barry Zito.

- Not exactly related to Giants baseball, but an interesting article by Mark Purdy about Olympic softball, nonetheless. As you might know, this is the last year in which baseball and softball will be played in the Olympics. The IOC voted to scratch the two off the program for the 2012 London Olympics because the cost for building baseball/softball specific venues became too expensive.

Something to think about: if the games make a return in 2016, starting pitcher Jennie Finch will be 35, and Monica Abbott will be 31. Even more frightening: the last game to be eliminated from the Olympics was polo, in 1936. Have you seen guys with mallets riding horses since? Neither have I.

- Tim Lincecum versus Roy Oswalt tonight. I, for one, am excited.

Walkoff x2

If the Dodgers miss the playoffs by one game, I think they'll look back at this game and wonder why they couldn't turn a 4-6-3 double play.

Rivalry Weekend

Pitching match-ups for rivalry weekend:

Brad Penny (5-9, 5.88 ERA) v. Barry Zito (6-13, 5.40 ERA)
Hiroki Kuroda (6-8, 4.21 ERA) v. Kevin Correia (2-6, 5.53 ERA)
Chad Billingsley (11-9, 3.01 ERA) v. Matt Cain (7-9, 3.60 ERA)

Fitting match-ups, eh?

Zito hopes to continue his streak of good outings while this will be Penny's first start since June.

The Giants seemed to have figured out Kuroda last time in LA--all 7 runs came off hits. This time, Kuroda and Correia are both coming off decent starts. Hopefully Correia can return to his late-2007 form and get the win.

And lastly, Sunday features the showcase match-up of the weekend, Billingsley versus Cain. It will be a fun one to watch, especially if you like pitching duels between two guys with overpowering stuff. Disclaimer: Billingsley pitched his first career shutout against the Giants the last time out.

The big question is not if the Giants can score more than one run for Cain on Sunday, but if 25 returns to Mays Field for the outfielders' reunion. If he does come, odds are that we won't know about it until he's on the field.

---

OT comment starter: Excited for the Olympics? Y/Y?

ESPN Article on Fred Lewis

I've been a big fan of Freddie, as he has been one of the few bright spots on the Giants, and this article cements the fact that you just can't help rooting for him.

Warriors 08-09 Schedule Released

The Warriors released their schedule for the upcoming season. Considering the flurry of moves made in the offseason, it definitely provides some intrigue as to when former Warriors players come back to the Oracle with their new teams.

Some quick observations:

1. Twenty-four of the first 38 games are roadies. The 07-08 Warriors played surprisingly well on the road, compiling a 21-20 record. We don't know how this new team will fare on the road, especially with the loss of Baron Davis, but it shouldn't be utterly lost. Corey Maggette played better on the road than at home last season, though his splits have been inconsistent throughout his career.

The upside of a top-heavy schedule is that it must be balanced somewhere else. In this case, January and February are relatively easy months, featuring an 8-game homestand in January and only 2 road games in February. If this Warriors team can truly contend, those are the two months in which to make a playoff push.

2. March and April. If you take a quick glance at the last half of March and onward, you would probably cringe. At first glance, it does look pretty brutal, especially the 4-game roadie featuring New Orleans, San Antonio, Dallas, and Denver. Contrary to instinct, though, the March-April run is very beneficial to the Warriors.

Most of the opponents are non-bubble teams -- teams who have already clinched a playoff spot or very close to doing so -- meaning they most likely will rest their best players to preserve them for the post-season. In other words, regular season games aren't too high on the priority list anymore. Whereas a bubble team will fight tooth and nail for every regular season game to clinch a spot, making itself a difficult opponent.

Here's how the last 18 games break down:

8 games against non-bubble teams: Lakers, Sixers, Hornets 2x, Spurs 2x, Rockets, Jazz
4 games against non-contenders: Grizzlies, Kings 2x, T'Wolves
6 games against bubble teams: Mavericks 2x, Suns 2x, Clippers, Nuggets

Though the 6 NB teams won't likely be playing for anything, those games don't automatically qualify as a win, especially for the Warriors. Still, the Warriors have more than their fair chance to win the game. The 4 games against NC teams are must-wins, as always. The schedule against bubble teams slightly tilts in the Warriors favor. Half of the games are at home, and only one of the games is on the back end of a back-to-back.

So, if I had to break the 08-09 schedule into three chunks, I would say hectic for the first two months, relaxed for the next two, and then full-out stretch run for the last.

---

In non-Warriors news, Giants' management nearly lost Sergio Romo to another team thanks to their ignorance of waiver rules and signed supplemental draft pick Conor Gillaspie.

On Monday, a Wichita, Kan.-based NBC news affiliate reported Gillaspie had agreed to a pro contract with the Giants that included a $975,000 signing bonus and other incentives.

Amazingly, I believe these two events happened on the same day. God forbid the Giants sign Gillaspie and then DFA him.

The Giants have yet to sign the other 3 of their top 4 picks, though Sabean assures that they will sign by the deadline.

Slider versus Atlanta Braves

I realize that I have yet to chart the sliders Lincecum threw in his past two starts, but let's take a look at today's 3-2 win over the Braves.

Inning	Batter	Velocity	Result
1	C. Kotchman	82	Ball
1	B. McCann	83	Foul
2	M. Kotsay	84	Swinging strike, blocked, K
2	K. Johnson	79	Ball
6	O. Infante	77	Ball
6	O. Infante	80	Swinging strike, K
7	J. Francoeur	79	Swinging strike, blocked, K
8	O. Infante	82	Ball

Second Half Cain

Matt Cain has pitched superbly in four starts since the All Star Break:

4 GS, 28.2 IP, 24 H, 7 R, 10 BB, 23 SO, 1.57 ERA

One of the contributing factors to his success is the noticeable increase of breaking and off-speed pitches Cain throws. Cain--regarded as a flyball-strikeout pitcher--has started to mix in his other pitches. Chris at Bay City Ball recently wrote a post about this trend and broke down the percentage thrown of each pitch in Cain's arsenal.

Would there be any reason to believe that Steve Holm has anything to do Cain mixing up his pitches and/or his recent success? Cain pitches better when Holm catches (.219/.303/.344 against) than when Molina catches (.240/.315/.390 against), but the sample sizes are so small that the numbers probably don't mean much.

Molina has done a good job with the pitchers. The only problem I've noticed is that he sometimes tends to call for one pitch too often until the pitcher gets beaten up. Whereas Molina will stay with a pitch, Holm seems cognizant of what pitches work for the pitcher that game, and mix it up from there.

The percentages from Fangraphs suggest that Cain's incorporation of his other pitches to reduce his reliance on the fastball has been his goal for a while and not just because of Holm's catching style. I would venture to say that we see Cain's improvement when Holm catches because Holm's style is geared to highlight such improvement.