The Dodgers, the Unquestioned Laughingstock of Either League
Actually, the Mets are giving them a run for that title, too.
If you’re Matt Kemp, how long is it before you decide to start spending your best waking hours hanging around Rihanna again? Seriously, I don’t know how the players will be able to maintain their focus with this circus unfolding—media asking them the same questions over and over.
Does anyone know the rules about this take over? If Coletti wanted to add a bat at the break, could he do it or is he bound by a strict budget? Can he trade salary away?
There is something so infinitely perfect about the Giants winning the World Series and the very next season the Dodgers get taken over by Major League Baseball….
Fun Stat of the Day(!)
Felix Hernandez pitched 249 innings last year. He only gave up a run in 209 innings. So in an era where most pitchers struggle to pitch 200 innings in a season, King Felix pitched 209 shutout innings. That’s unbelievable……
the Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings –Pawlie storms to an unprecedented lead, Dirt free falls down the standings, Unca refuses to take Denny’s shit lying down!
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Still discombobulated a bit by the Special Events Calendar, especially the “Hotel Heroes” event. Is this where they celebrate escort agencies and other hookers being available for business travelers that have had their flights canceled and have to hole up in a seedy hotel for the night?
Go Giants!
LQTM
BF — I don’t think there are any “rules.” mlb can pretty much do what it wants to do and tell McCourt sue us and we’ll cross-claim you into oblivion. (Nice name, McCourt. Fucker spends more time there than a bailiff.) The situation with the Dodgers is probably more like the Rangers than the Expos. mlb will find a buyer and force a sale. No kiss, no vaseline. Thank you Mr. McCourt. Adios. Meanwhile, they’ll probably be sure the team has an operating budget that keeps it from losing value (and face) too quickly.
As I understand it, the Mets present a whole different problem, because Wilpon has been such an important part of the Selig alliance. The workout there is going to be more respectful. Vaseline, at a minimum.
And while the day’s first caffeine is kicking in, a predicition: Neukom will rise to prominence in the owner’s group over the next few years – – maybe all the way to Commish.
Yikes, Xoot, thanks for the image, Selig and vaseline…. I’m sure you’ve all seen it, but just read Henry’s pre-Atlanta piece about game 3 last Fall. Cool to relive it.
LA got props for signing all the young guys to short contracts at non-exorbitant rates, sandwiched around the ridiculous Manny deal. wonder how many of these guys stick around now? I give Kemp credit for carrying the team, but when he looks around…
Look at the IF: Loney who is despised for lack of pop and a collection of old guys and retreads: furcal, blake, uribe, carroll and Miles.
Nobody worth a fuck to play LF, with the kid sands in there now. And a pen that got abused last year.
Unca in the top five? BLEEP!
Yeah, Ethier and Kemp, the faces of ambivalence on the Dogs, look to quit on this season much earlier than last year.
I do feel bad for Uribe (a little) for ending up there. No one twisted his arm to go, but I’m sure he’s not having the fun he was last year.
AB-68 Avg-.221 HR-1 RBI-8 Runs-4
I’m surprised you haven’t picked up Uribe yet.
Yer the one with all the Dodgers, skippy.
Ivan de Jesus is available . . .
Uribe’s production is no surprise to me whatsoever. ATT was built for him, he left here and his big numbers were left behind….
I figured he’d be on the DL by now. I had no worries about him having much impact for the Dogs this year.
Frankly, with all the distractions, the fucking Dogs are doing better than I thought . . .
It’s early yet . . .
All I can say about Uribe, I hope he asked to be paid in cash.
And from what I read, I think xoot is right. Basically they’re just looking for a buyer. As far as trades and signings etc., the current Dodgers powers that be, so to speak, can still orchestrate whatever they want but MLB has the final say to any decision.
If only I could feel bad for the dodgers but I don’t. It is bad for MLB as a whole though. Cuban’s name has been thrown around as a candidate. He’s got the cash for it that is for sure. MLB would never let that happen but I think he would be a good owner and bring fresh ideas so of course Selig would squash it.
He likes guys who kiss his ring and get in line and that isn’t Cuban. Could you imagine? His first order of business would probably be an effort to expand that pitch tracking technology for balls and strikes.
Despite presiding over the steroid era I don’t despise Selig as many do. He’s done some good things like expanding the MLB brand through multimedia but this talk lately about more teams in the post season is asinine. It is definately time for an infusion of fresh air and new ideas in the MLB executive suites. Xoot’s suggestion on Nuekum is interesting. The guy is sharp and talented. A comish with a bow tie. I like the idea but would hate to see The Giants lose him.
Dirt, excellent point . . . This was the same thing they were saying on Jim Rome’s show yesterday. Cuban would be very good for baseball in my opinion too.
Yeah, and make sure they have cool names too, like Kenasaw Mountain Landis and Happy Chandler.
I know this sounds strange to those of you who hate lawyers almost as much as you hate work, but “the good old days” were good because the Commissioners were lawyers. Bart Giamatti understodd that fact, so he brought Fay Vincent with him to the office.
Selig, to me, will always be the guy at the All-Star game, in the 11 inning, throwing up his hands and looking bewildered and confused.
The playoff expansion is a joke. The season is already too long. This only make it worse. Plus, the div winners get a 10 day break while the wildcard gets figured out? I mean, it’ll be a 7 game WC series, I’d think.
At some point, they need to get an outsider to run baseball. Like the good old days.
My comment above is supposed to be here.
Talk is it would either be a one game winner take all or best 2 out of 3. Most likely the latter.
It’s not that they are lawyers, Xoot. It’s that they aren’t part of the ownership group like Selig was, and Neukom would be. Ueberroth and Frick weren’t lawyers. I don’t know about the rest . . .
Fox and the hen-house and all that.
I understand. I’m disagreeing with you. Frick started working for Hearst but became a NL insider, and then worked his way up. Bowie Kuhn was a lawyer, but I’m not sure his name is funny enough. Ueubberoth was an uneducated jock-turned CEO corporate asshole who would’ve been far worse than Selig, if he’d been content to remain Commissioner for very long.
I’d go with Paul Volcker, man can’t be bought.
chuck – I still think of Selig as owner of the Brewers, yeah he gave it over to his daughter but…
xoot – Kuhn said Mays and Mantle should be kicked out of baseball, because the only jobs they could find at the time were greeters at casinos. FUCK HIM.
We can only hope the MLB takeover doesn’t prevent Colletti from making any deals in his futile attempts to catch The Champs, although by mid-season it might not matter anyway. But amidst all the turmoil, give the Bums credit for making the Braves use five relievers, including two innings from Kimbrel, right before Atlanta comes to town.
Schulman’s piece on Game 3 in Atlanta reminds me of two things: First, the Giants came back with 2 down in the 9th to tie the game, against Kimbrel, on their own, BEFORE Conrad got his cleats tangled up at 2B. And it all got started here: “Ishikawa pinch-hit for Romo and fell behind 1-2. But the Giants’ best pinch-hitter in 2010 has a discerning eye and took the next three pitches for a walk.” Don’t rule out a Ishi’s return this year. I still prefer him to Nate.
Travis has had an awful time in Fresno- .213, no HR, 4 RBI, 19 K in 47 AB. I’m sure a lot has to do with disappointment but he’ll need to step it up if he hopes to return.
Now Yahoo is picking up on Belt getting demoted on his birthday and running a main page story on it. Come on, boo fucking hoo. It’s not like the dude is 6 years old or something. I’m sure the fact that he got sent down was a lot more important to him than the fact that it happened on his birthday….
I’m not a big Selig guy, but what was he supposed to do at the All Star game that year? The managers had used all off their pitchers and were in total agreement with the decision.
I’ve always felt he caught WAY to much crap for that….and he still gets blasted for it today. I guess his body language made him an easy target.
Plenty of chatter on NY sports radio about SF being a logical destination for Reyes if and when the Mets are dismantled. I know it’s just talk…
Jerry Manuel was on Chron Live talking it up as well. Said if the Giants got Reyes, it’d be ring-fitting time again.
All I’m hearing about is the Knicks, who can’t get eliminated fast enough.
Bruce Jenkins poo-pooed the Reyes/Giants thing somewhat flippantly the other day:
“The Giants may not have any midseason interest in Mets shortstop Jose Reyes, but a lot of teams will – even if means a two-month rental for the healthy, 27-year-old package of speed and defense, eligible for free agency at season’s end. Count the Angels, Reds, Brewers, Cardinals, Twins and Dodgers among the potential bidders.”
Selig’s attempt to snuff the Twins so he could secure the entire Upper Midwest market for his far less succressful Brewers is reason enough to despise that
bastard.
The Selig move in the All Star game to me is a “whatever”. The squads were out of players. Stuff happens. But, he should be torched continually for the All Star winning leauge gets WS home field thing. That is an abomination. It must be dismantled by the new Commish when he shuffles off to his gilded retirement retreat. I’ve never heard any serious baseball fan support that. He did make the good move of adding the WC. Now, he’s about to poop all over that by adding a second WC, which will F Up the current playoff rhythm, which is just fine except for already being too late and too many days between games already…
Only way the expanded W.C. could make even an iota of sense would be if the regular season was reverted to 154 game form. Don’t hold your breath on that one. If that happens i’ll start betting on the ponies, or maybe even draw my first pulltab, or possibly even buy a lottery ticket as an historical personal first.
Well, it’s going to happen, the WC expansion. But maybe Bud can just create a permanent spot for the Brewers and do away with the actual playing…
Yes, it’ll happen. It even has the support of the players’ reps and owners’ reps. A lot of extra revenue for all.
any word on Panda’s triceps … still out?
good question
Just for fun, what would your everyday LU be with Reyes at SS? Do you just bounce Torres all the way down? Mets briefly experimented with Jose in the 3 hole a year or two ago.
How about:
Torres CF
Sanchez 2B
Reyes SS
Posey C
Huff 1B
Sandoval 3B
Burrell/Rowand LF
Ross/Schierholtz RF
Torres has more than enough pop to bat six and bring some speed to the middle of the order…Nate is not to be platooning with Ross,Loo.
Assuming Reyes bounces back to a 350 OBP, he could replace Freddy as the #2. There’s nothing particularly special about having someone with a lifetime OBP of 337 be the second batter of the game.
Selig’s legacy, aside from looking the fool during the all star game is his blind acceptance of steroids back in 1992, when Vincent was going to at least put forth the proposition to ban them from the game.
He also rode herd over the lost 1994 season . . .
Which led to his further ignoring of PEDs when the McGwire/Sosa HR derby put butts into seats . . .
Giamatti and Vincent were prepared to take hard lines all around. An early example was banning Pete Rose for life. Steroids, already a problem in football, were in the their sights. That’s where Vincen’ts famous edict came from. When Giamatti died, Vincent was unable to fend off the worried owners on his own. What happened was a fucking coup by the owners. Selig became the dictator they installed. They didn’t care about steroids. The strike was a product of their collusion. Future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotamayor finally ended the strike from her perch on the federal bench in NY by ruling against the owners. She hastened to get the ruling out the day before the season started, so the fucking owners wouldn’t get to trot out replacement players. Then, as Chuck says, steroids became a wonder drug for healing all wounds . . . . .
The entire story, from Uebberoth’s support of collousion through the Barry Bonds trial, is unbelievable. Yet baseball survives. The Giants had a magical season last year.
Good points, Chuck. We can’t exactly say that Selig has been an unmitigated disaster ~ though mitigations have been comparatively few and of lesser weight than the disasters themselves.
The Panda is back! And Bochy done did the lineup right tonight. Wonders never cease.
Rowand CF, Sanchez 2B, Huff 1B, Posey C, Sandoval 3B, Burrell LF, Ross RF, Tejada SS, Bumgarner P
But Dennis, don’t you think Sandoval and Tejada should be switched in the order?
Anyone in the know – is Panda playing tonight? I understand he still has an “owwie” on his arm.
Situation of sputtering starters tonight with Hanson vs. Bumgarner. Will one or both revert to form or will it turn into a general slugfest? LaBumbos clobbered Cubbies today, so apparently the McDivorceCourt fiasco is not immediately felt on the field.
Bumgarner ended up with a pretty good outing last time out. I think he’s ready for a top effort.
Rox having a bad day in FL, lucky to be down only 4-1 through 4. Chacin is not sharp, 86 pitches, walked Anibel, too.
over on Chronicle Live they are debating whether Chipper Jones is a HOFer. The subjects they try to come up with.
Jim Thome homered again yesterday..would you put him in?
Chipper will get some votes…where do you draw the line btw a really good player in his era and HOF?
Thome will have 600+, he should be a lock..
Flav, I’m diggin’ the colorized FL scoreboard, but it doesn’t link you up to your team when clicked like it used to do. Any chance you could remedy that? That was a very nice feature. Thanks.
Must be a major weather system – quite a few games postponed this evening.
As for my “unprecedented” lead in fantasy baseball, it’s nice to have fantasies intrude upon reality, if only for a while. Lots of luck coming out of the gate, mostly owing to pitching (sound familiar?).
That King Felix stat is almost beyond belief — plus he’s on my fantasy team.
As for y’day’s post, I mentioned last year how unsettling it was to have few or no African American players — on a team some of my bigoted Yankee-loving cousins and aunts and uncles hated in the Fifties because the Giants had so many of Them (their word, used on rap songs, was less politic). Which gave me — rebel — all the more reason to love the Giants. It’s a challenge and not intentional, I don’t think, on management’s part. City kids don’t much play baseball. But I tell you MLB is trying. In Syracuse we are direct recipients: there is participation in the urban RBI program. Last summer, on a warm night, it was fun to see kids playing — white, black, and Latino — under the lights. No future major leaguers, but a lot of heart.
That’s a can of corn for Reyes. 🙂
Here’s a can of corn for you. ;(
A pleasure hearing Jon Miller tonight, first time this year for me.
This ump’s strike zone is as stingy as my investment returns.
Nice relay there Fruckie — not. Orange Friday magic was last year. Ditch that shit.
Houston, we have a problem. Wake me when Reyes arrives.
Ball hit a fucking rock
let’s see Reyes break his back making the play Miguel made earlier.
Wasn’t it against the Braves last year that they overcame like an 8 run deficit, took the lead and lost anyway?
sounds like 1993.
Might’ve been the Reds.
Is it time to start considering that MadBum is just a slow starter?
maybe a 2nd half- kinda guy?
I know I always played better in the warm weather…….
On a scale of 1-10, how worried should we be with Bumgarner? I’m thinking a solid snowman.
DMD– I changed the Fantasy Standings thing because i can *snip* a screen shot of just the daily placings and the pts moved up or down. I think it’s easier to make sense of for non-league people. But I might just put it back the way it was. I do think there are bloggers out there who like to see how the regulars are doing in fantasy baseball and the way I have it now is easier to read……..
Okay…I didn’t read a single comment, only the lead-in and I know from past experience, when a problem as big as McWhoops is eliminated, you as a player-WHEW!-relax…
LA isn’t going to win anything but they can now just focua on playing rather than the McDrama…
Last year, Bumgarner wasn’t ready– got married or something. It’s time to consider the possibility that Bum’s wife spends the majority of her dick sucking time sucking dick in the Winter/early Spring time.
Sandy– the thread was one of my lamer ones. I didn’t have any ideas this am before I went to work so I went with a neg-Dodger angle. If I had had more time and thought about it more I would have gone with a Brooks Conrad angle. The torture and the torment that dude has endured is nearly one-of-a-kind. He’s got Buckner and Bartman to hang out with. Not too many others……
It was and remains a hot topic flav and I wasn’t jumping on it…but I chaecked out a few other Giants blogs and they WERE all over the new Buckner
Maybe you should have gone with the Mrs. Bumgarner dick sucking thread…
Loo, if it weren’t for 2 weeks of Twin’s wrath, I would just make this POTD and just be done with it…….
Not many guys paid the price more- Conrad hasn’t played in the field since.
There’s nothing like 1/3 of your fantasy team taken out by fucking weather. Fuck weather. I hate the east coast for one reason: their shitty weather that fucking take out my fantasy players. McCutchen, A-Rod, Gardner, Cano, Tabata, Alvarez….all wiped away because of some shitty fucked up storm.
California rules……..
feck off about our fecking weather, you player’s-spouse-insulter; our weather builds character; look at Loo
Bumgarner was quoted somewhere as saying he’s not confident. Confident. An accurate self-appraisal, by the look of things. But, Mr. Undertaker, you want a confidence builder? a) Look at ring. b) Mediate on ring. c) Play mental highlight reel of WS game against Texas. Repeat a, b, c.
Speaking of confidence builders: Hear about the HS kid in NYS who pitched a no-hitter AND NO ONE EVEN GOT A BAT ON THE BALL?
meditate, not mediate
we need a hit
and then another
and another
ugh
Twin is that for real? Wow. That dude can hit. I’m surprised they even kept him on the team if they were going to warehouse him, save a few pinch hit at bats. What kind of a roster spot is that???
10 games, 10 PH appearances, that’s it.
Conrad made 5 errors in spring training, that might have something to do with it.
didn’t he walk the first guy? He’s not that good of a pitcher, he has been hammered in the past. He just pitched against a bunch of guys who suck at baseball. That’d be like me hurling my best stuff against you chumps. Nothin’ to see here people, move along…… 🙂
That one didn’t hit a riock…Burriss is hitting like .330 with 15 SB…
Hanson has a hand motion that must make it very difficult to pick the ball up…watch his throwing hand next inning
totally agree. I noticed that and re-wound several of his pitches.
from CF it looks like Hanson is aiming it; guess it looks not-so-hittable to the batter
I posted my last in the wrong place but that’s point
If Vogelsong can hit 92 regularly with command, that’s definitely a cut or 2 above the usual journeyman fill in.
These Braves announcers SUCK. I actually miss Skip Caray.
Ernie Johnson did one of the Giants-Braves games last year, it was damn near unbearable. BTW Loo, I got the other two . Great question.
i don’t.
Voglesong…….I have to say, I’ve never seen this dude in person till tonight. He looks like a total athlete–actually looks a little like a right handed Noel Lowry. And I loved the location of his pitches. He’s no Wellemeyer, that’s for sure. I am a Sabermetrics nut and I love finding underlying numbers that find a hidden stud or expose a fraud–Vogelsong doesn’t have the numbers. But I’m also down with “walks like an athlete, talks like an athlete, looks like an athlete”— Voglesong has that *look* and it’s no risk right now and I’m starting to like him…….
Without looking it up? Good job, Mac. Lotsa guys did 3 out of 4. Including Armando……
No cheating, promise, but it took awhile. Probably never would’ve thought of Ledee, though. And yes, kept coming up with a bunch of 3s.
umm, the good news tonight? eh… hmm… Rockies and Pads both lost. Vogelsong continues to appear to be a pretty good pitcher.
Part of this loss attributable to Cousins, the home plate chump. I think we’ve seen his squeez act before. He must enjoy messing with young pitcher’s heads. Otherwise, hey, the Braves are a good squad. I picked ’em to win the East. They have good arms, and a good mix of position vets and young ones. How long has Chipper been in MLB — seems like forever…
sept ’93 … yeah, he’s around a bit
Now is a time of great decision
Are we to stay or up and quit?
There’s no avoiding this conclusion
Our Bumgarner is turning into shit.