A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

That was an excellent thread by Dennis yesterday about second favorite teams. There were a lot of interesting comments and hate for the Yankees. And I caught a small amount of grief from Flavor for even mentioning a small fondness for that team across the bay that wears those gay-assed white shoes! All good stuff from what I saw of the comments (which was limited).

Today I want to throw out two topics for discussion. And my apologies if you guys beat these like a dead horse yesterday. Speaking of horses, I was out of pocket most of yesterday with the girlfriend taking her horse for a follow-up appointment (resulted in good news for the horse’s future), and didn’t have much time to visit the Flap (so again…not sure to what detail you may have covered these topics).

Anyway…back to the two topics for discussion. First, did the hated Bums really make that great of an acquisition yesterday in Hanley Ramirez? Sure, he was the 2009 batting champ, averages 25 bombs a year over his career, and can play some tough short and 3^rd (that and he is only 28 years old). On the flip-side, he was hurt for a decent chunk of last year (played in 92 games), hit .243 with an OPS of only .712 (10 dingers and 45 RBIs). This year? He is hitting only .246 with an OPS of .749. To top it all off, the Bums take on the remaining salary of approximately 6 million this year, and 15.5 and 16 for the next two. And to land HanRam, they gave up two young pitchers. Nathan Eovaldi has appeared in 20 major league games with 16 starts over two years (3.96 ERA/1.440 WHIP). The other guy, Scott McGough is a reliever with 5 years of minor league experience. His current ERA is 3.99 but he has a 10.45 ERA over his last 10 games). So, the question is when you look at all the details (performance, both past and present, and the coin involved) was it really a good deal?

Secondly, what should our beloved Giants do (if anything)? I know we have kicked the tires on this a lot. If they are going to make a trade, the deadline quickly approaches. Many of you have thrown out your takes on what is most important for the Giants to remain competitive, and more importantly, to go deep in the post-season. There have been the big “pie in the sky” proposals such as G-Head made a few days ago (the most significant piece being the acquisition of Willingham). I did not comment on that one much, but it had problems in that Huff (and possibly Freddy Sanchez) were parts of the proposal.

What do you see as the most glaring need? I think we need to shore up the bench. With the loss of Hector and Whitey filling-in, that hurt (hopefully Sanchez is back soon). And we all know Manny Burriss (probably more than we want to). There have been a few times of late where he and (pencil in any other bench player’s name) have come up where a key knock ties the game or puts the Giants ahead, with the result being another frustrating inning of no hit with RISP, and a loss.

And if the Giants do decide to make some moves, do they go big (and trade their few quality prospects such as Gary Brown)? I think not. I believe they need a RH bat that has some power, and who can play the corners, and possibly some OF (at this point, the corner IF seems the more glaring need). Outside of that, I think the bullpen could possibly stand a minor tune-up. I still get nervous at times when Hensley takes the hill, and am not entirely sold on Kontos.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on Ramirez, and what do our Giants need to do to keep their grip on the NL West lead, and help ensure they can be competitive in the post-season. Flap Away!