Angel (Not) in the Outfield

Plus Joe Maddon on leadership and the demystification of the dinger. [View this email in your browser]( Angel (Not) In The Outfield There have been any number of things wrong with the Giants' year. The offense has been awful, the outfield defense has been weak, the off-season addition of [Mark Melancon]( hasn't been enough to end the great bullpen struggles of last year, and the starting pitching hasn't been much better. They've been saved the title of worst team in baseball only by the historically bad Phillies, and the gap between the two is fairly small. Over on FOX Sports today, Ken Rosenthal has a look at [how the team's chemistry has suffered]( as their record has gotten worse, and as you'd probably imagine, it's not pretty. There's one tidbit in there, though, that's especially interesting albeit inconsequentially so: "Some with the Giants muse that the team even misses [Angel Pagan]( who created an odd sort of unity because most of the players disliked him." Even if you set aside the fact that things must truly be bad if there's a general consensus that you'd be better off if you all could bond over collectively hating a teammate, there's another layer of sadness for the team here. After Pagan went unsigned as a free agent through the winter, he announced in April that he was more or less retiring. (Specifically, taking the entirety of the 2017 season off in order to spend time with his family at age 35.) But as Eno Sarris wrote back in December, [it might have been smart]( for San Francisco to re-sign him: "Heck, the Giants could use some outfield help" was certainly accurate at the time, but it's proven itself to be much more so now. There's certainly no guarantee that Pagan would have stayed healthy enough to be meaningful help on defense or that he'd have repeated last year's resurgence at the plate—a 105 wRC+. But considering that the Giants have one of the worst offenses in baseball, holding the dead-last spot on the wRC+ team leaderboard with a current mark of 79, and that they've had to play an awful lot of [Gorkys Hernandez]( lately, the presence of Pagan seemingly could have offered at least a little more than just someone to hate. [FanGraphs produces over 400 articles each month, in addition to our ever-growing database of stats and graphs. Support our efforts today!]( Today on FanGraphs: [The Demystification of the Dinger]( Perhaps the most dominant theme of baseball discourse this season has been the home run spike and the reasons for it: the ball is juiced! Strikeouts have lost their stigma! It's just the age of three true outcomes! Today, Nick Stellini focuses not so much on the why as the what next. What do home runs mean when they're omnipresent—for teams, for fans, for players? [Subscribe to our Podcasts!]( Catch up on past newsletters or pass along to a friend [here](. Data Visualization of the Day: [Starting Pitcher ERA-Siera Gaps—Potential ERA Improvers]( Today on RotoGraphs, Mike Podhorzer looks at starting pitchers whose SIERA indicates that their ERA may soon be due to come down a bit. Excerpt from ["Joe Maddon on Leadership and Straight Talk"]( Travis Sawchik “I think all of us can put ourselves in a group situation. You are sitting in a group across the table, and you don’t really know each other,” Maddon told FanGraphs. “You want to put out an idea, but often times the person receiving this idea doesn’t know you well enough, so they are going to want to push back, promote their idea because they don’t really know you. Also, turn it around, you are in their seat, accepting someone else’s ideas. It’s hard to put that full amount of trust in them if you haven’t built the relationship. I think there is natural push back when it comes to exchanging ideas.” [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2017 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 1200 N Hartford St. Apt 312Arlington, Va 22201 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](