2:30pm: Righty Andrew Moore has been designated to make room for Altherr on the 40-man. The outfielder is out of options, so a corresponding demotion will also be in order.
12:44pm: Per Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the Giants have claimed OF Aaron Altherr. Altherr, 28, was designated for assignment by Philadelphia last Saturday.
It’s the latest in a months-long flurry of outfield moves for SF, which remains on a desperate quest to find anything approaching quality production from all three spots. Michael Reed, Connor Joe, Gerardo Parra, and (in a part-time role) Yangervis Solarte have all come and gone just six weeks into the season, while April acquisition Kevin Pillar has been a near automatic out over his first 125 plate appearances with the club.
28-year-old Mac Williamson has reportedly been promised regular action in left field, though neither he nor center fielder-turned-right fielder Steven Duggar have done much to warrant anything of the sort. Perhaps Altherr fits as a platoon option with Duggar and occasional fill-in for Pillar and Williamson, though any whiff of a hot streak may place him firmly in the lineup for good.
Altherr has been dreadful since the beginning of the 2018 season, with a 30 plate-appearance, .034/.067/.069 ’19 mark on the back of a 75 wRC+ mark from the season prior. Still, his offensive track record far outstrips those of any of his new outfield mates, and perhaps regular playing time will be just the elixir his struggling bat needs.
well no one guessed this one
Shocker
Another OFer for Zaidi to trot out there on a two-week tryout.
Absolutely correct! Zaidi has done nothing but try to catching “lightning in bottle.” And Zaidi continues to come up empty.
Maybe Zaidi has been watching too many episodes of “I Dream of Jeannie” thinking Barbara Eden is going to grant him one big wish.
Cool dad joke, dad.
Keep cycling through em till you find out what works. I like it.
They have no choice and they could get lucky…..
As a Phillies fan, I hope he finds success in San Francisco.
As a Giants fan, I concur.
Hey Ty, Pillar has at least 20rbis since coming to the Giants. Look up from your computer screen every once in a while and watch a baseball game. I’m not saying the .200 avg works. But hes had more productive hits since arriving than most on this lightweight roster.
It’s 2019. Nobody cares about RBIs.
He has a 55 wRC+ and -0.2 fWAR. His OBP is .232. He’s been awful.
Ah, Ty bring up the truth.
No fair!
I won’t defend Pillar, but when a team scores 3.8 runs per game, perhaps there’s no stat more important than the RBI.
Watch a game Ty. They play on grass not paper
That’s cool, but if we’re talking about his performance on the Giants, he actually as a 0.3 oWAR (BR) and while a 666 OPS is hardly ideal, I wouldnt consider that to be an “automatic out”
Furthermore, a .227 BABIP isn’t sustainable. All in all, while he hasnt necessarily been the giants savior, but he’s been a reasonably solid fill in who was inexpensive to acquire, controllable through 2020 and should see his bottom line numbers improve as his BABIP evens out. I still expect him to be a reasonable trade chip for SF between now and the time he becomes a free agent.
A .”227 BABIP isn’t sustainable” it certainly could be. BABIP is only so informative. You really need to use other measures of contact with BABIP for that to be a useful statement.If 80% of his balls in play were of the soft-medium variety that number wouldn’t be unsustainable at all. It’d be representative.
Pillar doesn’t walk. He K’s in about 20% of his ABS. His hard contact rate is 26.9%Last season he had a 34% hard contact rate. His soft contact has increased where as his hard contact has decreased.
All in all his BABIP probably will increase a bit as it still low but he wasn’t much of an offensive player last year with a better batted ball profile. He’s not expensive but 5.8MM isn’t nothing. I don’t think he’s much of a trade chip personally and he hasn’t been very good anyway you want to slice it. Not an “automatic out” but not good by any argument.
Actually,some of us still do care about rbi’s.
Numbers have been around since before Newton,so they are not really a new toy.Perhaps in baseball,which was slow to realize their use’s potential impact,but not in a number of other professions,such as engineering.or science.
Rbi’’s are an important consideration over extended periods of time,especially for the power hitters in the middle of the lineup where runners would tend to be on base.
Rather than someone say a flippant statement that is trendy,and of course relevant to daily or even annual time periods,I think that a more reflective statistic is success with runners in scoring position.Some hitters are more clutch than others.
I realize that this goes against the analytics “experts” but I do not really care.
Amen….
You guys could just look at how he hits with RISP rather than RBIS. I mean hey look RBIS are nice to see I agree with that but they don’t tell you as much as another stat could. You can’t control how many guys are on base when you come up to the plate.
I mean you guys do think Mike Trout is the best baseball player on planet earth, don’t you? The man has driven in 100+ runs twice in an 8 year career.
I agree that there are a lot of considerations involved.What many of these posters,though,clearly do not understand that over time these things generally tend to average out.
If you have 3,4,and 5 place hitters that play ten years,chances are that for many of those years that they will have 1 and 2 hitters that get on base at close to a general average rate.
If the “power” hitters are clutch,they will have more rbi’s.If they are clutch,they will play longer because they are better hitters.
This concept is too much to grasp for the average current analytic mind.
I do not know what Trout’s batting average is with runners in scoring position.It would be infantile to think that that stat is not a very important one when it comes to rbis.Eight years is a long data set.As great of a player that he is,maybe he is not a particularly clutch one.Or maybe he has played on a team with 1 and 2 hitters who do not get on base.
“Maybe he has played on a team where the 1 and two hitters don’t get on base” That’s the argument against RBIS right there. If you batted fourth on a team where you had 3 guys who were great at getting on base in front of you you’d have more RBIS than a guy who played on another team with 3 subpar hitters in front of him. That doesn’t mean you the #4 hitter on that team is any better than the guy on the other team. You just have teammates who are better at getting on base.
I don’t think I’m better than anyone else. Ty has gotten roasted today because he came across with that arrogance. Whether he intended to or not. Which is easy to come across that way on the internet I know for a fact I’ve been guilty of it as well.
But anyway I grew up thinking RBIS were extremely important. I’m still under 30 years of age so I’ve been exposed more to the saber-metric era now but It’s just a logical argument. When you remove the bias that RBIS have to matter that much it just makes perfect sense. You can’t control how many guys are on when you come to the plate. All you can do is perform when your time is called.
I understand your point,and understand where you are coming from.Most of the posters who agree with you are young,growing up in the computer age.It is only natural for you to see the specifics but not the whole picture.
I am 66 and used numbers my whole life in engineering.
I do not think that you are smug,just questioning.That is not a bad thing.
It is difficult to communicate certain things in emails or the Internet.Most of us try our best.
I thought that Ty was a little over the top in his article,but he was mainly correct.I thought that the roasting was a little extreme.I had a real problem,however,with two of his other statements.
I just think that you were partially correct in your assessment on rbis,but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
It’s 2019 and a big deal was just made of Albert Pujols getting his 2000th RBI. SOME PEOPLE do still care. And some of them are your readers. Maybe you should not make them feel like they are wasting their time reading your words.
They still bring up stats like RBI on game broadcasts, in arbitration hearings, pretty much everywhere. I’m not sure why Ty feels the need to speak for everyone.
If you want to talk about RBIS that’s fine. There’s still a counting statistic that your general fan likes to see but there’s far better ways to evaluate a players success than by RBI’s. You could be a generally poor hitter with RISP and still have a solid amount of RBIS based on opportunities. You’ll never have as many RBIS batting lead off as your 4-5-6 hitters would but that doesn’t tell you anything about either player. Arguing a players worth via RBIS is just a porous argument. Though they will always have their place as a nice counting stat. Just like batting average. Informative? Not really.
It must just be a coincidence then that Hall of Fame power hitters and current highest salaried hitters almost always have the most rbis and highest batting averages.
I am glad that “ they will always have their place as a nice counting stat” so I,as just a “general fan”,will continue to be entertained in my simplistic way.
Do you think mike Trout will be in the hall of fame? Does mike trout not also hit 30 bombs a year? We don’t need to be completely anti-intellectual. RBIS are a nice counting stat. They are but they don’t tell you very much. Are you telling me Mark Trumbo or Chris Davis is better than Mike Trout or Bryce Harper? Better players tend to have more RBIS because they hit the ball more but it’s very easy to poke a million holes into that argument.
They aren’t better played because of their RBIS.
If you had An all star hitting in front of you who had a ton of RBIS wouldn’t that negatively impact your rbi total? Even if you’re every bit as good or even far better than that guy? I mean cmon. I’m not talking to you as if you’re an idiot so please don’t pull that card.
I didn’t say that you said that I was an idiot.
If these stats are not important why are players salaries partially determined by them?
You seem to be mesmerized by Mike Trout.What is his career batting average with men in scoring position?
Why would you bring Mark Trumbo and Chris Davis into an arguement that you are trying to win?
Yes,if I had Henry Aaron in front of me then one would think that he would clearly lessen my chance for rbis.Or,would they pitch around him,and give me another runner on base?
Too many posters do not understand how these numbers can be used and that over time the variability tends to flatten out.
Both trumbo and Davis had 2 100+ RBIs seasons in their first 8 years like trout. That’s 1 more than Harper. They were a rather poor example but I’m an orioles fan and I just threw them out there. Adam Dunn, Ryan Braun, Matt Kemp, Ryan Zimmermann, . Etc. I mean the list goes on and on if you want to look at RBI totals and guys who have more than players who are clearly superior. Very good players tend to have lots of RBIS over their career. That’s not the argument. Those players also tend to have tons of chances because they’re very good and hit in the middle of the order. Adam Dunn isn’t better than Joey Votto because he has a ton more RBIS.
Thank you for explaining.
Of course they are nowhere near the player that Trout is but that is for a lot of reasons other than rbis.
You are correct also that players get paid for reasons other than rbis,but some of these guys got paid mainly for home runs and rbis and not much else.
Please do not mix rbis up with how good a player is.My arguement is that it is still an important stat on a longer term basis.
I think that in the race to appreciate the value of the new analytics that people have forgotten the significant value of the old time analytics.They can both have an important current life.
The point is that there can be many different types of players on a team. Think of it like a recipe. There are different types of player that are put together to make a baseball team. You don’t just mix together two ingredients to get a well-balanced dish. You add a speedy leadoff hitter, a couple of good on base guys, a couple of RBI guys, and a couple of better defensive players toward the bottom of the order in order to make a balanced team.
Since sabermetrics have taken people are trying to compare every player as if every player has the exact same skill set or job. They don’t. You don’t need that. It would be great to have 9 .450 OBP guys on the team, but there aren’t that many. So you follow a great OBP guy with a power hitter to drive him in. Driving in runs is just as valid a skill as getting on base.
And don’t even start about it being situational because EVERYTHING in baseball is situational. Even getting a walk is situational. You only get a walk if you are facing a pitcher that throws 4 pitches off the plate. You face a pitcher that throws strikes, you get fewer walks. Doesn’t make you a worse player than a guy that just stands with the bat on his shoulder while facing a pitcher with poor control.
Not everything or everyone is comparable in baseball.
Pillar is garbage, you know your team is butt gravy when he’s in the starting line-up. He is at best a bench bat, maybe come in for defense at end of the game but his stick skills and obp are terrible. The vets need to tighten up. Crawford/Longoria/panik/belt have been aweful this year. I know their getting older but dam man they only 30-33 years old. They should be producing alot more then what they have been doing. Maybe they need to fire the hitting coach. Bring a new face in.
“…(he) has been a near automatic out over his first 125 plate appearances with (SF).
“He has a 55 wRC+ and -0.2 fWAR. His OBP is .232.”
He has hit much better with the Giants, (79 OPS+) than he did with the Jays (-66 OPS+). It’s true that he has been underwhelming, but you definitely overstated his struggles at the plate with the Giants. Then instead of citing his numbers from those 125 ABs, you use his overall season numbers. As a writer for MLBTR you need to appear to be more unbiased than that, plus I would like more insight than that less than illuminating statement..
.222/.256/.410, is what Pillar has hit as a Giant, and while not good, it is not a virtual “automatic out”.
that many RBI on the Giants reflects pretty well on you, regardless of how much value you want to put on the stat.
Watch teh gaymez!!!!1!11!
RBI’s are purely situational and aren’t an accurate method for determining a player’s value
I can tell who has actually played the game, and those who have only studied it. I cant expect certain people to understand. But those who have played still respect the big hit.
Frisco bringing truth. Thank you.
Thank you. Numbers nerds who don’t understand baseball strategy and go to numbers to back anything up. Play the game and you’ll know
Situational hitting IS part of a player’s value.
situational hitting is agruably much more valuable. always singling with 2 outs is much less valuable then hitting safely 1/4 of the time (ie an average AVG, but then again that stat is apparently completely useless anyway)
This could work well for both parties. Then again, that’s what I thought when Parra signed there.
I’m not a Giants fan but if I was this article would annoy me. Ty Bradley, you went a bit overboard with the negative hyperbole. We get it, the Giants and Altherr have struggled. Let the numbers describe that to us more than your opinion and adjectives.
Ty’s a nerd. It is what it is
After all, it is 2019
If the writer was really a nerd, wouldn’t he stick to just the numbers which you so desperately want? It’s a free country man but if you can’t handle opinions maybe just google stats and leave these articles for shrewder minds.
I can handle opinions just fine, but this is a website that primarily reports news. I have no issue with the writer’s opinion being evident in the article to some extent, but this was a bit much… in my opinion. 😉
It was a bit much. Ty, for whatever reason was spoiling for conflict. It was derisively written and served mainly to provoke Giants fans.
I found your comments spot on and would serve Ty well going forward.
Thank you. I’m not trying to dump on Ty. I don’t know the man and I generally read all of the articles here regarding of who writes them. I was frankly surprised that this was published. The degree of criticism was just unnecessary and bordered on being unprofessional, and I would hope that it was just an exception.
Mac Williamson, fan favorite? huh? now that’s just making stuff up
Completely true. Lots of people I know headed towards the bar to watch his season debut a few days ago. He’s an exciting player to watch.
Williamson is AGAIN overmatched on his latest and perhaps last fling in the majors. An occasional home run versus numerous strikeouts just won’t cut it….even in SF this year.
Sacball, I’m a season ticket holder (since Candlestick). Going to the game today. I have never once heard Mac called a fan favorite. Maybe Ty was thinking of McCovey? Clearly he has a very tenuous grasp on the sport. He knows not, if a book or spreadsheet doesn’t tell him so. Is what it is. There are lots of these guys hacking away on a keyboard from their basements nowadays.
You can’t say the Giants are not searching for players to strengthen their weak farm system. Glad to see they have the guts to cut under performing vets. next up trade away any player with trade value for some young players.
Article says the giants have struggled to find quality production from all 3 OF spots, but I’d argue that Steven Duggar has been the best overall player on the team to this point. Wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up winning a gold glove either this year or in the near future.
Duggar: 77 wRC+, 0.1 fWAR, 6% BB, 26% K.
Posey’s on pace for almost 5 fWAR, and Belt’s at a 117 wRC+ w/ a BABIP 60 points lower than his career average
Cherry pick stats all you want, Ty, he still leads the team in hits and is their best defensive outfielder. You can’t call Duggar’s spot in the OF something that’s hampering the team when he’s been leading them in hits and playing good defense.
You have “moved the goalposts” of your original claim, Batter1600. That’s cheating.
To add on Duggar will only be getting better as he develops. Posey is currently injured, Belt has been slumping since the first 2 weeks of the season. I’d say instead of looking and numbers and numbers alone, take some other things to consideration as well.
Save your breathe Baller. Fans who actually watch the sport agree with you. Trust me.
Duggar has shown potential. Giants just need to give him a chance to prove he is solid enough to be a everyday player.
When Duggar is the bright spot there are some problems for the Giants. To me what’s shocking is how fast the Giants vets have declined.
Not shocking at all. That’s a byproduct of the hard fought Octobers. Lots of extra high stress innings while the rest of the league was comfy on their couch, right next to Ty.
lol, Giants haven’t played in October playoff baseball since 2016 and haven’t played deep into October since 2014
Quite a lot of unnecessarily strong language in that. Shooting fish in a barrel by calling a bad (and rebuilding) baseball team lots of mean adjectives.
Maybe it’s wiser to step back and try and analyse what the Giants are doing, rather than resort to hyperbole? This mean-spirited column seems slightly incongruent with the otherwise irreverent tone of the website, in my mind. YMMV, but I think the Giants are an interesting work in progress.
No they aren’t. Bad team with bad contracts and a weak farm. Yeah they have money but any significant player is signing an extension now.
“…but any significant player is signing an extension now.”
I assume you mean not signing an extension now. But why would the Giants want to sign anyone on the roster approaching free-agency to an extension? That’s not what any rebuilding team would do.
I mean all the free agents to be are signing extensions. Next year is just Gerrit Cole and Rendon and both are in their 30s.
Maybe it’s wiser to take a step back and not get your granny panties in a twist. I’m a Giants fan myself and had no problem with this article. Sometimes the truth hurts. Seems you’re eager to be hurt by anything you deem “mean,” also known as everything. Welcome to 2019 folks!
Respectfully, I think you’re missing the point. It’s not the opinions themselves that are primarily bothering people. The issue is that Bradley shouldn’t be using them here.. It’s generally not considered appropriate for someone reporting news to so obviously show that degree of bias. This isn’t an editorial, it’s a news article. There are ways to do just as efficient of a job of portraying how bad a player Altherr is and how bad the Giants are without using blatantly leading and frankly derisive words. Any good editor or even fellow writer would have suggested trying less colorful language.
Anybody know the corresponding move(s)?
I’m thinking Belt to the IL might be one (knee), but what about the 40man?
I get the Giants are a bad team, but man, try to stay at least a little impartial when you’re a writer.
” get the Giants are a bad team, but man, try to stay at least a little impartial when you’re a writer.”
They’ve won three WS this decade so I don’t think anyone is going to go out of their way to feel sorry or “be nice” to them.
Like the Giants, the Marlins are an awful team. They put themselves in that position. They don’t get a pass. At least your team had three rings to show for it even though they held on too long.
Why do you equate impartial, with nice. Those are 2 different things. Asking for impartiality, which should be expected from a news site, is not asking for anyone to feel sorry for the Giants.
No one is arguing that the Giants aren’t bad, nor that they don’t have themselves to blame. Fanboys can talk all the smack they want about that, and I won’t complain. I will complain though when that smack is purported to be news.
Altherr is a guy you have to put in and let him play long enough to get his feel back. Spot duty for him will be a recipe for disaster.
Given the Giants history with preference to veterans and homegrown talent I don’t see this being the case.
Throw the bucket into the dry well yet another time in hopes that somehow the result is water !!
The Phillies would have loved to trade either Altherr to Williams to the Giants, but neither really performed well enough to warrant any kind of return. Now the Giants get him free. I hope it works out for Altherr, but this guy just seems lost at the plate.
He had a fine year two years ago,and when he first came up several years before he had good extra base power.
He is the epitome of a crap shoot.
I think that given an extended chance,which we all know San Francisco can give him based on their existing outfielders,he has a chance to become a good hitter if he stays healthy.
The Giants have nothing to lose.
When people are defending Pillar you’ve hit rock bottom as a franchise. Give me a break. Sell off what you can and hope in 4 years you contend again.
Duggar is already showing he’s a better player than Pillar and Duggar is still learning.
No one:
Zaidi: what DFA candidates you got but on the low
Rob Refsnyder’s about the only one left…..
Whether I agree or disagree with your opinions/criticisms/approvals etc, mr Bradley, your style belongs on another site. I like this site because it USUALLY reports facts…ONLY.
Even the writers in the chat rooms don’t use your style. If they did people likely would turn off and tune out.
He’s really not an “inexplicable” fan favorite. Before getting a concussion by sacrificing his body on one of the pitching mounds in left field, Mac had gone through a swing change with Justin Turner’s private hitting coach, Latta. He was crushing the ball and had begun to again in AAA after a long recovery. There, now you have been educated.
That “inexplicable fan favorite” thing was weird. Fans were intrigued by what he did in the minors. Unfortunately everyone was left hanging as to whether his AAA game would transfer to MLB, because of the TJ surgery and the concussion. He’s not a fan favorite. Everyone has been waiting to see if he can be an average MLB guy or not, and that wait to find out has been extended.
I don’t like what the Giants are doing either. But the author’s puerile imitation of some oh-so-edgy weekend-fillin local-TV sportscaster is emetic. I don’t expect it to be displayed, but when the founder of the site chat’s next, I’m going to urge him to turn Bradley’s rapier wit loose on the Yankees and see how that plays. They’ll tear’im up..
Hiring Ty Bradley is the biggest mistake this website could have made. The dude is a headcase who believes Madison Bumgarner was a third starter at best in his prime.
He won’t last Baller. We don’t look for his kind on this site. It’s okay if he wants to have opinions, but there’s Bleacher Report et al for that kind of writing. I just want facts on mlbtr. And it’s the COMMENTERS that should be commenting/ arguing/disagreeing/agreeing etc. It’s always been that way and Bradley needs to figure that out
Ty got hammered in here today. He has a negative-WAR. But we should let up on the lil man. We wont have to deal with him for much longer. He’ll be writing Trader Joe’s news letters before we know it.
Another team’s reject pick up by the Giants.
At this point, try to get something for Pillar. He is wildly inconsistent at the plate. He leads the team in HR’s and RBI’s I believe but .200 is not good enough. Would like to see him closer to .250. Let Williamson, Austin and Duggar have at it. They’re not going to compete this year based on the first month and a half. Might as well see if those 3 can do something as we look towards the future.