A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

The A’s are *all in* on this move to San Jose and there is something that I just don’t get about it. What self-respecting Giants fan would ever switch their lifetime allegiance from the Giants to the A’s just because the A’s suddenly play closer to where they live? When I take the train to a game I get off at the Palo Alto exit. That’s a little more than half way between San Jose and The City, I think. There are three main exoduses on that route. One of them is San Carlos— there are a huge number of Giants fans that live in San Carlos. The next one is Palo Alto. Everyone else seems to be going to San Jose (the last stop)—-it’s a HUGE hotbed for hardcore Giants fans…..If I lived in San Jose, if I lived even one block from the proposed stadium site, there is no way in Hell I would ever start going to A’s games. I find American League ball to be infinitely boring and going to a game is expensive, I wouldn’t even go for random entertainment.  Give me a free ticket and I’d probably give it away since I wouldn’t want to miss the Giants game on TV. Maybe if the Yankees were playing I’d go…But that’s the same reason the A’s get an attendance bump where they are now………So what are the A’s expecting from this move? Do they think even one single hardcore Giants fan from the South Bay is going to all of a sudden become an A’s fan because of their new location? SF Giants fans are possibly the most loyal fan base in all of sports. The A’s could build the “Taj Mahal” of baseball stadiums and those fans are still gonna take the 1.5 hour train ride to 4th and King…….

And for the most part, true baseball fans only support one team. ….

So what am I missing here?

Yes, I know I’m ripping off John Shea’s topic at the Chron today, but when the baseball headlines are “Russ Springer Retiring” and “Padres Sign Sam Deduno”, the blog threads are gonna be slim pickins….

Cody Ross: We all love him and that’s going to color our predictions for 2011. The facts are, this is a player who is declining. His slugging % vs right handers has dropped 3 consecutive years (.451, .424., .371).  His OPS has been in a freefall, too: ..1057 in 2007, then .798, .751 and .730.  His walk rate and contact % is almost exactly the same as Aaron Rowand’s…..

And don’t forget, the only reason he even got a chance to play was because Guillen sucked and ultimately got forced off the post season roster by MLB for his connection to steroid shipment. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be talking about Cody Ross……

The thing Ross has going for him is: very little competition. He’ll start for us this year, maybe the entire year. But I think we’ve seen the best Cody Ross will ever give us. It’s all downhill from here……

I want to start by saying, I think Brian Wilson is hilarious. He’s got a super dry sense of humor, you almost hang on ever word he says. When I first saw those videos he did for his “My Life” thing I watched them over and over laughing at different nuances each time….

But if you saw his appearance on Lopez Tonight the other day you might agree that it’s time for Bee-wheezy to reel it in a bit. For starters, that wasn’t his best stuff. On a scale of 1-10 I’d rank that gig about a “5”. And baby, when you dress up as a goddamn Captain of a ship you have to nail it. It’s got to be a 9 or a 10. Otherwise, you’re just some chump dressing up on Halloween; when it’s not Halloween. And that’s a bad look, man……

Look, he’s won a World Series, he got tons of fans (including me), but when your humor is that unique you are opening yourself up to easily over-exposing yourself and going from “funny as hell” to “cheesy prop comic” in literally one appearance….

There are only so many bearded characters he can be. Here’s a tip: stick to the home videos with an occasional appearance from The Machine. And don’t forget to log your 40+ saves a year or that bit will get old, too……

John Shea’s “Answer of the Day” at The Gate starts off missing the mark and by the end kinda contradicts itself but gets it relatively right. He says “the roster isn’t all that different from 2010”. That’s utter horseshit. The 2010 roster wasn’t even the same as the 2010 roster—-at least when you compare the start of the season to the end of it. Our Opening Day outfield last year was DeRosa/Rowand/Bowker; didn’t quite end up that way. We had to endure the failures of Wellemeyer, ultimately replacing him with Bumgarner. Posey was absent for nearly the first 2 months of the season. We had to play about a third of the season with a significantly WORSE roster than we played with the last 2/3. What would our record have been like with a full year of a seasoned Posey and Bumgarner? We find out this year……..

2011 has a completely different look than the totality of 2010. We get Bum and Buster for a full year. We get DeRosa back (this will be huge, he can play every infield position plus the outfield). We get an in-shape Panda back. There’s the full-season of Cody Ross to consider (that could be huge or just a huge disappointment, we will see). And then there is always the Marc Kroon Factor  (insert gay-ass smiley face).

I think gong into 2011 we are the clear cut favorite to win the NL West–the only thing  we need to fear are injuries, something we haven’t really had to deal with too much over the last couple of years. But the Rockies and Dodgers didn’t add anything that scares me. AZ is busy shedding their strike out machines and cobbling together a starting 5 that is nothing to fear. And the Padres…who knows what the hell is going on over there.

I love our chances in 2011…….

(btw, if you can’t see how dominant my “18” is today over the Gate’s than you didn’t listen to too many Monster Ballads from the ’80’s)

Unlike the Suppan minor league signing, this one is at least interesting. This dude did nothing before he went to Japan but apparently figured something out as he turned into one of the league’s better closers. And whatever you say about the competition, the fact is, closing is a hard job at pretty much any level. Lots of guys throw in the high 90’s (as “The Phoenix”—his agent’s nickname for him—does) and he’s probably a guy who has just been blowing the lesser Japanese competition away with his heat. But he would have had to solve his control problems either way or he would never have been successful. There’s very little innings on this guy’s arm…..I’m just sayin’,  not a bad flyer at all…….

Stumbled onto the Splash today. Wow. It’s so disappointing to see that blog turn into what it’s turned into. It’s just a wasteland of nonsensical idiocy, almost nothing to do with the team or the game of baseball. It’s a bunch of “look at me!” chumps….

I found The Splash in 2007, about 5 games into the season. It was the first blog I’d ever visited but  I got into it with Twin and I was hooked on blogging immediately, at least at that one particular site. The next couple of years were the best years of The Splash by a mile. We had about 12 regular posters but we would hit 300 comments in a day easily. And it was a wild, wild blog back then. Definitely over the top. But there was too much anonymity. The blog needed some accountability but it didn’t have it, The Chron could have given a shit about what was going on at their blog. We ultimately policed it ourselves.  I remember when Twin and I, in some blogger  dispute to the death, decided to end it with a joust that had  us firing off our personal  emails  to each other to fucking SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!!!. After that, some walls started falling. The regulars began sharing personal information, we started to get to know each other . I think the non-crazy, non homeless, non-weirdo’s decided to share things about themselves…stories…personal things…..avatars….gravatars….all of a sudden the blog world started to take a new shape. Something you could see and connect with……..Anyway, that’s why I started this place, to keep that going. We all care about one common thing, Giants baseball. And that’s what this place has been about from the first day I started it…..

Man, I am struggling to find something, anything, to discuss related to the Giants. I don’t remember having that problem the last few years. It seems it’s dead across baseball. At mlbtraderumors they are discussing the relation of a player’s height to performance. Zzzzzzzz……..

As I said on Sat night, anyone who gets their pic taken with the trophy can send it to me. I’ll put together an album if I get enough pics. Send pic to bigflavor77@gmail.com

The Pack v The Steelers. I can’t remember a more popular match up (at least recently). Unfortunately, I tend to agree with Kawakami’s assessment of the game. I try not to align myself with self-serving shit disturbers so I’ll see if I can find another angle over the next 13 days………

Congratulations to Andres Torres. He agreed on a 2.2 million dollar deal the other day. What a totally non-descript, underwhelming number. In baseball today, 2.2 million buys you almost nothing. But this is a guy who was so poor growing up he literally didn’t have the money to buy shoes for “a few years” when he was growing up in Puerto Rico.  Seemingly finished and out of chances after the 2005 season he stuck to his trade and cobbled together a roster-flyer with the Giants in 2009. Then he has a completely improbable, wildly successful 2010 as one of our World Series hero’s (anyone who helped get us there was a WS Hero).

I’ve got no clue if he repeats 2010 ever again. My gut says no but I’ve been wrong about him several times. But if that’s all we get and he drifts off into baseball irrelevance and is never heard from again he’s finally got some security for himself and his family. 2.2 million buys an awful lot of shoes………

Did you guys catch the *article* devoted to Giants baseball at the Chron today?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/21/SP6P1HCL3R.DTL

I can’t remember them ever running a “Days to go” countdown. It’s not even an article, just a single Q/A by Schulman. I’m not sure who generated the “Q” but it was a uninspiring way to start the countdown………

If the CHron wants to go toe-2-toe with with a “days to go” countdown, I’m ready, baby. I think mine today already beats their so I declare myself winning, 1-0…….

He’s going to make 1.3 million next year, a nice bump from his minimum salary from last year. He stranded 41 of 47 base runners last year, that was 2nd best ratio in all of MLB.  That astounds me. I remember situations he would get into and just smack my forehead going “How the hell did he get out of that?!?!?!?!”. He did have an unbelievable 2nd half so either Raggs taught him something or….who knows. Luck? His first half WHIP was 1.62, his 2nd half WHIP was 1.00. We all know he’s got amazing stuff but that only carries you so far. Ask Denny Bautista about great stuff…….

But whatever, it’s impossible not to honor Casilla for the amazing role he played in our 2010 season. Welcome back…..

Ross and Dirrrrty both signed yesterday—they are good examples of the good and bad of being arb-eli. Cody Ross? I love the guy but I don’t want to risk more than a year deal on him– frankly, I don’t think he’s going to come close to repeating his production in 2011. He’ll be ok, he’s a 4th outfielder guy who got hot at the perfect time for us…..

Dirrrrty, on the other hand, could be a little risky to only go a year with. Sabean has bought out other guys years (Timmy, Cain, Bee-Weezy, etc). He could have a monster year. I’d like this guy locked up for multiple years, not just one. Torres, I’m fine going year to year with. Same with Casilla. Lopez I might go 2 years with…..

But whatever, we are getting everyone back except Rent and Uribe and I really don’t think that’s going to ruin us. We need another middle infielder to plug in when Tejada or Franchez go down but Pablo bouncing back would allow us to use DeRosa for that sub-job.

It’s all looking good except for the calendar which continues to click at a snails pace…….

Shulman finally got around to writing a baseball story but it really left more questions than it did answers. For instance, the Giants “have talked to Dan Runzler about converting to starting”. Well, what the hell does that mean? Is he doing the necessary things now to stretch his arm out? Is he for the idea? Against it? When your options are pretty much nothing in the minors (how would you like to be a starting pitching in Fresno this year when you know that you literally have no shot of getting called up) I would think the game plan would have come together already……

There is NO WAY IN HELL that our starting 5 make it through the season in tact. Our rotation hasn’t suffered an injury in years, that streak could easily end. And it’s entirely conceivable that Zito is done and in need of being replaced by May 1st. Does Casey Daigle strike your fancy? We can’t be in the business of giving away 20% of our games……….

Not much more to say on this, I just couldn’t stand looking at an A’s post for 2 straight days. That photo looked good, didn’t it? I wonder if he’s taking anything to promote the weight loss. Of course, adderall works as an appetite suppressant but I doubt anyone wants to go there…….

His traps are almost TOO big. He doesn’t need to bulk up anymore or it will likely effect his swing in a negative way……..

Well, at least we are inside a month……

I was thinking about the A’s yesterday. I know, I know, who DOES that? But the A’s have really had a good off season. Matsui didn’t impress me but DeJesus was a decent enough pick up (though I think they gave up too much for him) and Willingham is going to hit 25 bombs for them. The Balfour pick up was outstanding (I love that guy’s name. He’s a pitcher who’s named “Ball four”, that’s classic) and word is they might land Fuentes, too. That would be probably the best pitching staff in either league from top to bottom……

So I checked on them to win the AL Pennant and they are 20-1. They’re freaking 50-1 to win the World Series (we are 18-1). I can’t believe I’m saying this but I am taking some action on the A’s winning the WS at that price. They will likely win their division and once you do that, well, we saw what can happen……..

50-1? Jeez, Baltimore is 60-1. You gotta like the A’s at those odds to win the World Series……….

I’m sure most of you have heard hat there is going to be a “reality show” done on the Giants next year. I think it’s a great idea—great publicity for the individuals and the team and with that cast of characters it’s sure to be entertaining. I don’t think it will be a distraction at all. It’s not like the players are directing the show. It’s about time the West coast got a little attention…….

Hopefully the show doesn’t start off with a list of the 22 non-roster invitees–it’s an underwhelming list to say the least:

Casey Daigle, Waldis Joaquin, Shane Loux, Guillermo Mota, Felix Romero, Jason Stoffel and Ryan Vogelsong; left-handed pitchers Wilmin Rodriguez, Ryan Verdugo and Matt Yourkin; catchers Tommy Joseph, Hector Sanchez, Chris Stewart and Jackson Williams; infielders Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Charles Culberson, Brad Eldred and Nick Noonan; and outfielders Gary Brown, Terry Evans and Juan Perez.

I’m interested to see Gary Brown and Belt, that’s about it……..

SanDiggity Dawg and his buddy:

To me, the most amazing thing about this deal is that Soriano can opt out after Year one OR year 2. For that shaky fellowship the Yankees get to fork over a 1st round draft pick, too. I see the angle, 2 shut down, closer guys at the end of the game. But they still have a pretty thin starting rotation. After CC, they really don’t have anyone who can make it through the 6th consistently, much less the 7th.

I guess we are fortunate to only have to worry about “wrists and scales” this off season. And how much are any of us really worry about that?

1) How is Mark DeRosa’s recovery coming along? If he’s healthy that’s huge for our flexibility next year. The dude can play almost any field position

2) Pablo Sandoval on a scale. I’m not interested in Aurilia “bumping into him” at a mall. Stand on a scale once a week and have the results posted on a website or facebook or whatever.

I don’t see why the Giants beat writers can’t provide us info on those two topics…..

Brandon Belt: Everyone says he could win the job. I think he’s at least a half a season in AAA away, maybe a full season……

But if those 3 guys, or some combination of them, work out for us we are absolutely good to go in 2011……

When the main baseball news of the day is “Kris Benson Retires” you know you’re looking at a slow off season. At least for the Giants. Aurilia made a little news  yesterday when he said he “bumped into Panda at a Shopping Mall and that he’s lost 17 lbs– I can’t imagine that even looked noticeable. Sandoval needed to lose 40 lbs, at least….

Good college football game last night. I was largely unimpressed with both quarterbacks. Stanford would have beaten both of those teams last night…….

It would be tough for me to be more excited about a college football game that doesn’t have Stanford playing in it. The line has moved to Auburn -2 (it was -3 for most of the last month) and the over/under has dipped to 73 (after hovering around 74.5). I have NO IDEA what’s gonna go down tonight. My SEC bias tells me that Auburn is going to beat Oregon fairly easily and I just don’t think it’s going to be a hugely offensive game (at least not over 100 pts as I heard the Yahoo guy predict yesterday). I’m looking forward to watching the whole thing unfold. I’ll say Auburn 41 Oregon 31 (with Ore scoring a last min meaningless td to make the score look closer than it really was)……

FP has scored a broadcasting job with the Nationals. For some reason, everyone here hated FP. I wasn’t in that group, I enjoyed his energy and some of his takes on the game. He was far from perfect but I’d rather listen to him 1000 times before Bip Roberts.

Anyway, slow baseball news day so that’s all ya get…..

I didn’t see the details of the contract, just that his one year deal COULD be worth 3 million with incentives. He never would’ve gotten that here since it’s tough to reach incentives when you are a back up. I think Cinn is a great fit for Rent– he’ll look good in that uni, will love Bake and that ballpark has been known to pump up stats into a batters line.

That whole “disrespect” thing is dead and buried. When he comes up for his first at bat at ATT in 2011 he will receive a standing ovation. And it should be a long one………

Everyone is running around all giddy about Blyleven making the HOF. I don’t really get it. He was an all-star two freaking times (out of 22 seasons)  in his career. That shows how he stacked up against his peers. His numbers just don’t say “Hall of Fame” to me. And what do we think about the HOF if he gets in and Clemens doesn’t? No Rose, no Bonds, no McGwire. Just throw out numbers all together and I’m down with Blyleven getting in but otherwise, I don’t think he should have been voted in……..

6 years, 96 million? What the hell does Boras say/do/threaten these teams with that gets them to completely overbid for his players? The GM’s can’t be so stupid as to NOT know they are overbidding by dozens of millions of dollars, can they? Whatever it is, Scott Boras is the greatest negotiator the world has ever known. One time….ONE TIME…..I would like to see him lose but I guess that isn’t ever going to happen. I’m just glad Sabean stays largely away from this money-eating machine–well, I guess he already got “Bor-assed” with Zito…….

I would love to hear your opinions on this game. Despite Stanford’s dominant victory last night, I really don’t think the Pac 10 is as strong as people are calling it. And I don’t think Oregon’s defense can deal with SEC speed. Anyway, without getting into details, I have some very nice parlays closing on Auburn and want to hear from you guys if you think Oregon has a chance of ruining me. Come on, baseball is on life support right now, let’s talk a little college ball. Personally, I think the pic to the right is the best one I’ve found all Winter…….

As I said last week, I think lists are dumb but when I thought back over 2010 and what it meant to me (from a sports moment stand point), this year was just unreal for me and one I’ll never forget for more than just winning the World Series.  I don’t know if this is all that correct but they are the first 10 that came to mind when I started thinking about it…..

1) OUR, San Francisco Giants

2) Paly winning the State Championships

3) attending Game 1 of the World Series

4) Chris Cohan selling the Warriors

5) Stanford kicking the be-jezzus out of Cal in the Big Game

6) Watching Ryan Howard sitting there helplessly as B-wheezy bent in the most perfect pitch I’ve ever seen into Posey’s mit to send us to the World Series

7) attending the 7/31 “Burrell Bomb” game –I have never been in a louder stadium than in the 8th when he hit that go ahead 2 run bomb.

8) Mike Singletary getting fired

9) attending Posey’s first game of the year with SAN DIGGITY DAWG who had the foresight to buy the tix 2 months in advance to that game and invite ME to go along with him. Thanks dude.

10) Stanford girls taking down UCONN