Goodbye, Tyler Austin

On Monday morning, the Twins announced that they had traded Tyler Austin to the San Francisco Giants for a minor league outfielder, of whom more later. On Monday evening, Austin was in the Giants lineup as the first baseman, with Brandon Belt in left. He singled in a run, scored himself, and was pulled for defensive purposes, with Belt moving back to first and Geraldo Parra taking over left.

It's not easy for me to see the fit for Austin with the Giants. Their active roster shows just three outfielders -- Parra, Kevin Pillar and Steven Duggar. None of them figure to hit well enough to justify a prominent lineup role. It may be noteworthy that the Giants described Austin as a "first baseman-outfielder." He saw no outfield time with the Twins, either last season or this spring, but it's certainly plausible that the Giants may try to fit both him and Belt in the lineup by playing one on left on a regular basis.

But there's a further complication to that, and his name is Buster Posey. The Giants supposedly wish to pare back the future Hall of Famer's time behind the dish, as there are signs that his body is breaking down. He's 32 and confronting the same conundrum as Joe Mauer did -- catching destroys careers. I don't think the Giants can have Posey, Belt and Austin in the lineup together without Posey catching.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Giants specifically wanted Austin because he hits lefties well, and I can see that purpose. They're in a division with a few teams that lean heavily on lefty starters, although the Dodgers' list of southpaws has been pretty sharply diminished by injury.

As for the Twins' return: Malique Ziegler is a 22-year-old Iowan who has spent four seasons in the Giants system without notable production and hasn't risen out of A ball. He now joins a farm system with a bunch of well-regarded outfield prospects. While he can't be counted out until he's released or retired, there doesn't appear to be much of a path to the majors for him in Minnesota.

An evening with the Cubs at Giants

Jason Hayward makes a spectacular catch off Denard
Span in the first inning. (AP photo)

It was a study in contrasts from a distance. In front of me Friday evening at AT&T Park in San Francisco were a pair of first-place teams, one of of them threatening to be historically good; also in front of me on the scoreboard was the score from Target Field, where the Twins are threatening to be historically bad.

By the time Jake Arrieta took the mound, the Twins, playing two time zones earlier, were behind 7-1. By the time the top of the second inning ended in San Francisco, the Cubs led 5-0. Ultimately the Twins lost by less to the Toronto Blue Jays (8-3) than the Giants did to the Cubs (8-1), but the Giants looked, at least in the field, more competent than the Twins have for much the season.

I intend to write about the San Francisco park for the Monday print column. As for Friday's game:

Jake Peavy was in trouble from practically his first pitch. He entered the game with an ERA above 7 and didn't help it with five earned runs in 1.6 innings -- and one of those five outs was the result of a Cubs baserunning blunder.

Jason Hayward injured himself on a fabulous diving catch on the warning track in right-center field. No word on the severity of the injury. It reminded me of a catch I once saw Byron Buxton make, and it further reminded me that while I understand why the Twins sent Buxton down and why he remains down, the Twins really need to improve their outfield defense if the pitching is going to get better.

Arrieta was, in some ways, as close to ineffective as he's been all year, but he only allowed one run in seven innings. The Giants bunched three of their four hits off him together in the third to score a run, and they hit a few other balls well, but Arrieta pitched like the Cy Young winner he is.

A Giant accomplishment

Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner
celebrate the final out Wednesday night.

Nicely done, Madison Bumgarner. Nicely done, San Francisco Giants.

This makes three World Series titles for the Jints in five seasons, and while I don't think they're a great team, they've had a knack for finding the right people for the right roles in October in even-numbered years.

This year it was Bumgarner, the lefty slinger who stopped the Royals pretty much dead in two starts, then gave manager Bruce Bochy five shutout innings of relief in Game Seven.

We can wonder why Kansas City skipper Ned Yost never let Josh Willingham out of the dugout against Bumgarner -- the purpose of having the Hammer on the roster was to hit lefties, after all. We can wonder what would have happened had Alex Gordon run out of the box on his ninth inning hit that Gregor Blanco and Juan Perez misplayed into three bases. Might he have scored? We can wonder why Yost had Alcides Escobar bunt on an 2-0 count in the fifth inning after Bumgarner opened his outing by allowing a base hit. Giving Bumgarner a free out there certainly didn't hurt him.

We can wonder and what-if, but what happened happened, and what happened was the Giants winning the title.

One aspect of the Giants' staggered string of championships -- 2010, 2012, 2014 -- is how few pieces have been consistent from title to title. Buster Posey behind the plate, certainly. Bumgarner in the rotation -- although in 2010 he was in the back of the rotation and now he's in the front. Sergio Romo, Santiago Casilla, Jeremy Affeldt and Javy Lopez in the bullpen, although the first two have changed roles repeatedly and the latter two are essentially lefty specialists.

The Giants have had three different center fielders for their World Series runs, and three different second basemen. Twice, in fact, the Giants changed second basemen in midseason and went on to win the title. Pablo Sandoval sat for most of the 2010 World Series and hit cleanup in 2014. Tim Lincecum was a rotation mainstay in 2010, a useful reliever in the 2012 postseason, an afterthought this year.

What we have in the Giants, then, is a multiple-time champion that has had to retool on the fly, each champion sharply different than the one that preceded it. This is rare. Baseball history is filled with dynasties (or at least pretenders to such status) that relied on the same core. Few have had to rework the puzzle as completely as these Giants have. Casey Stengel's Yankees, perhaps. It's no small accomplishment.

Switching my postseason rooting interest

Prince Fielder, tagged out in the second inning Thursday
by Buster Posey, is a great hitter but considerably less than
that as a baserunner or defensive player.

I intended to root for the Detroit Tigers in this World Series. I really did.

American League as opposed to National League. Big Ten country as opposed to California. The best uniform in baseball. The best pitcher in baseball.

I wore my Tigers cap to work Wednesday evening. And as soon as the first game started, I found myself pulling for the Giants instead.

Part of it, I'm sure, was that my immediate supervisor is a big Detroit fan, so there was an opportunity to needle him. Part of it likely comes from rooting against a Twins division rival so much during the regular season.

And a big part — maybe most of it — is aesthetic.

The kind of baseball represented by the Tigers — a couple of bashers in the middle of the lineup, a rotation of power arms, sloppy defense and poor baserunning — doesn't hold a lot of appeal for me.

The Giants, on the other hand, are the team the Twins aspire to be. The real difference between the Giants and the Twins, obviously, is the starting pitching; San Francisco got 160 starts from its top five starters this year, and even in their best seasons, the Twins haven't gotten that kind of durability and quality. But the lineups — both teams emphasize contact hitting over power (the Giants were dead last in baseball in home runs), both teams value gloves, both teams have a superstar catcher in the middle of the order.

The Twins hitters had the second-fewest strikeouts in the American League; the Giants had the second fewest in the National League.

Rooting for the Giants feels a good bit like rooting for the Twins. It just feels better than rooting for the Tigers. And I'm going with it.

Turning over a roster, Part II

Catcher Buster Posey and reliever Sergio Romo are
two holdovers from the 2010 World Series champs.

Last week, I posted this nugget about how few players remain on the Detroit Tigers roster from their 2006 team, the most recent Detroit team to reach the World Series.

The San Francisco Giants, of course, won the Series in 2010. Just two seasons later, the lineup is almost unrecognizable.

The 2010 Giants — that was a weird championship club. The October lineup was a rookie superstar-in-the-making (Buster Posey) surrounded by a hideously out-of-shape Pedro Sandoval (having the worst season of his career, he got just three at-bats in the World Series) and a collection of discarded veterans: Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, Edgar Renteria, Aaron Rowand ...

Posey, Sandoval and Huff -- that's all that remains of the 2010 Giants for position players. (Huff's 2010 is so bizarre -- a strong year surrounded by evidence of incompetence.) Most of the rest of the regulars are either out of baseball or, like Huff, relegated to reserve roles and soon to be out of the game.

The pitching staff is another matter. Four of the five starters for the 2010 Giants are still there (only Jonathan Sanchez is gone); the order of priority has changed sharply, but Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and Barry Zito each made at least 32 starts. Much of the bullpen remains, although the 2010 closer, Brian Wilson, is sidelined by Tommy John surgery.

This year's Giants team feels more organic, more capable of long-term success, than the 2010 team did. This year's Giants have just two regular position players age 30 or higher (second baseman Marco Scutaro and center fielder Angel Pagan), and four of the eight are 25 or younger.

General manager Brian Sabean takes a lot of heat for the sabermetric community for his chronic unwillingness to give young players a chance. This team appears to belie that history.

The cost of a strikeout arm

Jonathan Sanchez was the third starter for the Giants when
they won the World Series in 2010, but was their fifth
best starter in 2011 (4-7, 4.26).

We interrupt our musings on the Twins front office shakeup to comment on a trade made Monday: The Kansas City Royals sent outfielder Melky Cabrera to San Francisco for starter Jonathan Sanchez and minor league lefty Ryan Verdugo.

This is of interest to Twins fans not only because the Royals are in their division, but because it suggests what the trade market looks like for starting pitchers, in particular starting pitchers who get strikeouts — which is the kind of starting pitcher the Twins could use more of.

Cabrera had a big year for Kansas City: .305/.339/470 while playing center field. His OPS+ — a stat that adjusts on base-plus-slugging for home field bias — was equal to Michael Cuddyer's. This was easily Cabrera's best season, and he's not particularly likely to replicate it, but his value was probably at its peak.

And what the Royals got for him is a power arm who led the league in walks in 2010, who made just 19 starts because of injury in 2011, who walked almost six men per nine inning when he did pitch, and who is eligible for free agency after 2012.

Yikes.

There basically two outcomes for Kansas City from this trade:

• Sanchez continues to be wild and/or hurt, in which case the Royals will let somebody else try to harness his talent in 2013;
• Sanchez finds sufficient command and health to be effective, in which case he's likely to be overpriced for Kansas City.

There's not much long-term upside for the Royals in this exchange, and yet he was worth giving up one of their better hitters.