Eric's Giants Blog

Rethinking Peter Happy?

Nice Giants win yesterday 6-1 over the Reds. Of course, it was the Reds...

Probably the most notable item in my view was Pedro Feliz' attempt to make me look like an idiot for bashing him so much. (Yes, Rueter's terrific game is also notable, but after pitching so poorly it's not so surprising that he would have a great start eventually - for those who think it's just a theoretical concept, that's what regression to the mean looks like, folks) After Bonds drew his 4,825th intentional walk of the year Feliz crushed a Cory Lidle breaking ball at the bottom of the strike zone and sent it into the center field seats. He also hit a ground ball for a single later in the game. His OPS is now up to .784 (I figure if I'm going to post frequent updates to this I can't just do it on days when he goes 0-4).

I have no doubt that if I listened to KNBR I'd hear a parade of people declaring this game to be Peter Happy's coming out party, that the Giants are now finally prepared to make opposing teams pay for the sin of walking Barry Bonds. It goes without saying that I think that this is wildly optimistic. I have said all along that if given 500 ABs Feliz would probably hit 25 home runs and sure enough he's currently on pace for 464 ABs with 22 home runs. His power is certainly real, but his approach hitting ... I just don't understand why any pitcher would ever throw Feliz anything close to the strike zone. Lidle had Feliz 0-2 yesterday, and I was expecting a quick strikeout. Why Lidle didn't throw that breaking ball in the dirt is completely beyond me - Feliz committed early to swinging, which was the only reason he was able to lunge out and dig that breaking ball out from the bottom of the zone to lift it. It's a strikeout or harmless dribbler if the ball is lower.

And this is what worries me - Feliz is like Damon Minor was in 2002 and like Marvin Benard was his whole career. He only hits mistake pitches. Cory Lidle is pitching in the NL for the first time and never saw Pedro Feliz before this. I think that Lidle, like most pitchers (but not all Giants catchers apparently), will watch film of his start yesterday, and he'll see where he went wrong when he faced Feliz. Same goes for the rest of the pitchers in the league. Feliz can hit the ball really hard - but he's an easy out, and it's only a matter of time before pitchers figure that out.

Aligning fandom for a player like Feliz is interesting. I don't think he's going to be good, ever. He's too old and makes too many outs. He can't tell balls from strikes. I also don't think the 2004 Giants make the playoffs. Which makes it difficult to know what to root for when Feliz stands in. On the one hand, I always want the Giants to win and their players to do well. On the other hand, I don't want to see the team commit even more than they already have to a player that I think stinks. In an ideal world, I'm rooting for Feliz to get really hot, be hitting .325 at the all-star break (with a .330 OBP) and see him get traded to a contender for a good prospect or two (which would never happen). I don't think he's genuinely an upgrade for too many contenders, but there are a lot of GMs out there whose eyes light up at a high batting average and some nice home run stats. Of course, to be fair, it bears mentioning that if Feliz could consistently hit .325 he actually would be a valuable player, since with so much batting average built in his OBP wouldn't be a killer and his power numbers would be very nice. If Feliz could hit .325 he'd be Garret Anderson.

But more likely, I see his .300+ batting average wearing away and as it does his lack of secondary skills will become more and more pronounced. Worst of all, but thinking well into the future, Feliz is going to be eligible for arbitration at the end of next season, and the arbitrators have long shown that they don't really understand performance analysis. They're going to see Pete Happy's homers and RBI (both of which he'll get if he's let out there every day for the next two years) and annoint him a league-average or better third baseman and pay him accordingly. And based on the way the current Giants regime spends money, they'll choose to pay Feliz.

posted by Eric @ 9:11 AM