A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

I saw this on facebook a little while ago, didn’t ask him if I could upload it here, I hope he’s cool with that. He’s on the left and I’m pretty sure that’s his daughter in the middle. Not sure who the other 2 people are. Excellent photo Chipower!

The candidates..
Hembree- big season has him closing or setting up in the bigs- but not now- maybe August
Otero- long shot
Petit, Gaudin, or Loux- if Lincecum and/or Zito scare Bochy and they go to a long guy/spot starter
Proctor- a long way back, 83 games in ’07 might have fried him. Still a legit chance
Runzler- might look to replace Lopez or Mijares next year. Still a great arm.
Rosario- Bochy likes strike throwers- has a shot depending on Ramirez and whether they go long with a Petit/Gaudin type
Edlefsen- don’t see it
Ramirez-the front runner, but hardly a lock

Position Players:
Pequero- he’s been seen by many scouts as better than Brown. I think he’s the favorite if they carry 5 true OFers
Kieschnick- like Chi, I love him. I can see a 2014 OF of Peguero/or Brown, Pagan, Roger. “Keecky” needs to kick major ass in AAA this year.
Brown- is he Butler or just another bunny? The jury’s out. He’ll open in Fresno, IMO.
Gillespie- nothing left to prove in the minors, I see it as Cole/Peguero/Pill as the duel
Pill- last shot to move up from AAAA- Japan? I’m rooting for him here…
Perez- sleeper, could sneak in
Noonan- former second baseman of the future, competion is Tanaka, Abreu, Valdez, Bond
Bond- no respect guy just hits.

That’s quite a scrum for three spots.I left some out that I don’t think have a shot.

I, like most of you, could give less than 1 percent about spring training performances. I do think, though, that if you have a bunch of shitty pitching lines in the spring it’s a reason to worry about you going into the season. Of course, Barry Zito blew that theory out of the water last year after he pitched like Todd Van Poppel on a bad day for an entire spring only to stroll into Coors Field and throw a shutout.

Still, anything that becomes a pattern worries me. Timmy’s inability to get through 2 innings today (1.2, 4 hits, 0 bb’s, 1 K) is not the way to kick off his bounce back season. I couldn’t find his pitch selection/speeds at mlb.com. But whatever, it’s his first start of the spring. He said all the right things afterwards about *hitting all his spots* and how good he felt *mechanically* and the ball is coming out differently this year (in a + way) as opposed to last year.

And then he said something weird: “Last year, I didn’t have the will to sustain my pitching. I wasn’t strong enough. Now I feel like I am.”

I get it, he’s been working out and adding muscle. It’s better than his In and Out diet from 2011 and HAS to be better than his swimmer-training thing that led to the weight loss and a pitching line that included the worst ERA, by a mile, of any NL qualified starting pitcher last season.

But he used the word *will* which, as I’m translating what he probably meant, has a definition of, in part, a “desire to see something happen.” So either Timmy doesn’t understand the definition or he just wasn’t that motivated to *sustain* his pitching last year. But I’ll let our resident wordsmith Pawlie Kokonuts break the meaning of that sentence down (if he wants to).

And Timmy might want to look up the definition of the word *sustain* because it doesn’t really fit in that sentence, especially as it’s connected to the word *will*…….

I’m optimistic about Timmy’s 2013 season as of today. Mostly because I think that his increased strength will help him pitch longer in games. And maybe that’s partially what he meant with his quote……

But the rope I’m extending him is “Zito-like”, at least when compared to the length of Zito’s rope coming out of Spring Training last year. He better get his sh!t together because Bochy isn’t going to keep trotting him out there every fifth day like last year. This year, he’s gonna have to bring something more than a couple of shiny Cy Young trophies out the mound with him. He’s going to have to produce……..

Maybe *opportunity* is too generous of a word. But with the Giants sending 8 players from the 40 man to play for the USA, there are a bunch of non-roster invitees who are looking at more playing time than they would have gotten if the WBC wasn’t happening in 2013….

I’d like to say that I’m looking forward to seeing these *unknowns* play but I watch almost zero spring training games. I’ll catch an inning here and there. But for Gary Brown, Francisco Peguero, Roger Kieschnick, Joe Panik, Jackson Williams, Nick Noonan, Kensuke Tanaka (pfttttt, that’s enough) this is their time to raise eyebrows. Some of them will get another spring or two. But all they really need to do in March is open some eyes. With one utility infield spot and a bullpen spot open, it’ going to be tough to snag an opening day spot.

But Blanco showed last year it can be done. Belt, too. Arias had a great spring but still got sent down to Fresno. He hit .400, got called up in May and became an integral part of the team. With a guaranteed contract this year and being only 28, he could have several years left in the major leagues.

So while these games mean very little to the average fan, you never know when someone is going to take off with an opportunity and turn his dream into a reality. Right now, it’s one of the only angles I can come up with to generate any interest for me in spring training. But for a few of these guys, it’s their last stand, their world series, their….well, Eminem says this better than I can:

I’m completely ripping off Marty Lurie, this was his topic today and I caught the tail end of it on KNBR. It sounded like he was also discussing *how* the Giants should get the flag out to its rightful post where it shall fly forever…..

But the image of Wilson running the flag through the outfield, up the ladder and to it’s ultimate landing spot was so perfect, I couldn’t imagine the Giants getting away from that angle. Obviously, Bee Wheezy won’t be *running with the flag* on Opening Day vs the Cardinals when our long awaited celebration solidifies into eternal reality…..

So who’s gonna do it? Pablo has got to be a leading contender. I could see them having Zito do it, but he’s pitching that day so that might not be something they want him doing during the pre-game. A KNBR caller suggested Brian Stow or his family (and I would think it would be his son and not Brian, unless they wanted to have his son run the flag along the same route that Wilson took and then hand over the flag *raising* duties to his dad. I dunno, that could get awkward.

I heard another caller suggest it be a relay of Mays/McCovey and Cepeda. Negative, at least for me. The Giants honor their past enough, and I can’t believe that any of those 3 guys would want to have a hand in something they didn’t actually have a hand in winning.

Other players who I would nominate: Hunter Pence, mostly for the maniacal path he would run. Angel Pagan, because I’d look forward to the salute at the end. Buster Posey, but I don’t think he’d ever agree to do it (though he would certainly be deserving). How about a *coaches link* of Gardner/Flannery/Meulens/Kelly/Raggs/Wotus/Bochy? That might look lame, each of them running about 20 feet. They could soft toss the flag along, I guess. 🙂  Matt Cain? He falls into the *Posey* category of being totally deserving but not the kind of guy who would want to do it.

Now ROMO would be a guy who would want to do it. And he’d be perfect. That’s who I’d pick.

How about you?

and you can’t say “the final out of Game 4 of the World Series….” 🙂

This is basically an impossible assignment but I’m interested to see how uniformed the responses are. I was going to go with the grand slam that Posey hit off Fuck Latos. When Miller says, “A long high fly ball to deep left field….” his voice is almost quivering in anticipation of what was about to happen. The Pagan catch in that game showed you his worth in those playoffs with that single play. The Romo/Bruce 9 minute at bat. There were almost too many moments from that game to pick one for my favorite of *the year.*

Here’s a mini-compilation from that game (included Dusty’s god awful call of  a hit and run that ended with Buster gunning down Bruce at third for a double play):

Here’s another compilation, this one is all 27 of Matt Cain’s perfect game outs. I forgot just how many tough plays were made in that game to preserve his perfection.

In fact, if I just base this off the play I re-watched the most times in 2012, I would have to go with the Blanco catch from the perfect game as my favorite moment in 2012. I bet I’ve seen that catch 50 times…

But there are so many others that I might have forgotten that you thought of as your favorite. Let’s hear ’em……

I went back to February 2011 to see what we were talking about in regards to the Giants upcoming season. It seems we were inventing things to worry about. After you win a World Series, there isn’t much to do besides B-A-S-K. In hindsight, we should have been worrying about all of our aging players who had career years in 2010 turn into flops in 2011. Here’s a thread I wrote on what I thought were the biggest upcoming concerns for the 2011 season:

If I had to list off 5 things that CANNOT happen to the Giants in 2013, I probably couldn’t think of 5 to list. I think I can think of 2:

1) They can’t have more than one of their starting pitchers go down or be ineffective.

2) Buster Posey can’t get injured again. In 2011, I tried to avoid jinxing it by not writing the word injury and look how that turned out. I’m also not as frightened of this outcome as I was in 2/2011 because at least Hector is a little warmer than the un-dead stuff we as a back up backstop going into that season.

Can you guys think of anything else that would torpedo our 2013 season?

Last December I wrote a thread about what a dipshit Joe Torre was. You can read it here if you never saw it or, horrors, forgot about it.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2011/12/16/joe-torre-is-a-brain-dead-numbskull/

His brain still isn’t working correctly. The article at the ‘Gate says “Torre Willing to Discuss Player Safety* and then Torre is quoted as saying, “My stance has never really changed.”

Well, your *stance* on catcher safety and rule changes related to it is THE PROBLEM, ya dipshit. And when he goes on to say “If something is going to make the game safer, and not affect the way the game is played, I’m certainly up for it.”

What is that even supposed to mean? So if it was a rule change that made the game safer but it would alter how the game was played he’d be against that? He cares more about the way the game has always been played than he does about player safety? Freaking sports change rules all the time. Baseball ADDS new rules to their rule book every single year……

I would think the player’s union would support a rule change for catcher safety—less catchers getting hurt is a good thing. The union should put pressure on Torre and not rely on Bochy and Matheny making their plea to him once a year.

Joe Torre is a dinosaur stuck in a 1970’s time warp. There isn’t a single sound argument against changing the rules to support better catcher safety on plays at home plate.

Athletes today are built much differently than they were 30 years ago. They’re stronger and faster. Go watch the play of Pete Rose blowing up Fosse. Rose stumbled a little before he made contact. He never even left his feet (but still separated Fosse’s shoulder). Cousins was a human missile and probably hit Posey with twice the force that the Rose collision created. And if Torre can’t see the difference between today’s players and the cats in his era, I just can’t say it enough times, he’s a FREAKING BRAIN DEAD NUMB SKULL.

No one should ever have to sit defenseless and absorb the force of a human missile. Jesus, football has made a ton of changes to support player safety. And Torre’s worried about how a rule change might affect the way the game is played? Does he really think it will change the game THAT dramatically? Fuck him.

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Steve and Paul. Enjoy the Flap *hook up* tonight (or whatever that’s called). 🙂 Flappers meeting up in Bangkok. Where next? The moon?

I think they’re somewhere around this place. Hopefully they aren’t hanging out at the 7/11. Aim higher. 🙂

With Matt Cain declared the Opening Day starter, it got me to wonder about the rest of the rotation. Despite Bochy’s brilliant use of Lincecum out of the bullpen in the playoffs, it’s almost a 100% certainty that he’ll return to the rotation. But what spot? If Bochy decides to go R/L/R/L/R then it can be assumed that MadBum would get the two slot although it’s also possible that Zito would get it with MB switching to the 4. But let’s say MadBum is #2. Do you then go Timmy #3? Because in this pattern that’s now going to shift Voggy to the #5. Is Voggy a number 5? Not to me.

If Bochy doesn’t go with the L/R order all the way through the rotation, I still think it’s likely that MadBum gets the #2 slot and Timmy goes #3 with Voggy #4 and Zito #5. And I think he’d do that mostly because Zito’s already pitched as the #5 and knows he could handle the *label* of being a #5. But Timmy already handled the *demotion* to the bullpen in last year’s playoffs so he probably wouldn’t freak out if he was given the #5 spot.

If we had 6 starters I think the best thing would be to leave Timmy in his *Super Reliever* role that he dominated in last October. Maybe there is something about less time to prepare or less pitches to throw that allows Tim to come out with his filthiest stuff. But we don’t have a 6th starter who could slide into the rotation if Bochy kept Lincecum in *super relief*.

This is a *problem* that’s fairly specific to San Francisco. Most teams don’t have more than 2 or 3 stud starting pitchers. They’re  just worried about finding something un-dead to trot out to the mound in the #4  and #5 spots.

Once the season gets underway, their spot in the order will get defined by how well they pitch. I doubt Timmy has a lot of rope with Bochy going into the season. If he’s mailing in the sub par performances we got from him last year he will not last long in the rotation. Last year, he made it all the way to the end of the season before his role changed. This year? I would say middle of May is about the length of Bochy’s tolerance if the *2012* Timmy shows up in 2013…….

That’s right, it’s February 18th (the day after Blade’s birthday. Happy (late) Birthday, bro) and I want to know what everyone thinks about our back up catcher. I know it’s not the sexiest topic but it’s what I chose to write about this morning on this fine President’s Day. He recently made the news by claiming he wanted more playing time. Well, that’s not exactly what he said. The headline read “Hector Sanchez Hopes to Earn More Playing Time with World Series Champion Giants”. But when you read his quotes all he’s saying is “Nothing’s guaranteed in baseball, I have to work hard every day, I’d be honored to catch Barry Zito again” etc.

And then Bochy had this to say about him: “To be honest, he’s got some work to do on the conditioning side.”

So our back up catcher has come into camp fat and that’s probably not the way to go about earning more playing time; even if that’s not exactly what he said he wanted….

Everyone talks about what a hitter Hector is and he might turn out to be one…..down the road. His OPS was a pedestrian .685 for the Giants last year. He was rollin’ with an unbelievably low walk rate of 2%. He swung at everything making contact with 77% of his swings. Unfortunately, not too many of those swings resulted in fly balls (34%) and that’s one reason why he only hit 3 home runs in 218 at bats. But, he’s young so the power may come later.

His BABIP was high (.349) so if you were hoping for him to improve on his .280 batting average from last year there are other things more likely to happen. So go hope for those things.

And he struck out a whopping 22% of the time.

All of this is bad, in my opinion, except we’re talking about the back up catcher and El Presidente set that bar quite low. He has age on his side and he could improve. But he’s fat and not worthy of more playing time. Not that he was asking for that anyway…….

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And for Paul and Steve, I hope you have fun tonight. While I know many Flappers who have met up in person I don’t think I can recall a better Flap *hook up* than the one you guys have put together. As far as I can tell, they’ll meet somewhere around here:

I was asked by a fellow member of the BBA (Daniel Shoptaw who is, coincidentally, a Cardinal fan featured prominently in Pawlie’s book “Baseball’s Starry Night”) to write a preview of the upcoming Giants season. Apparently, he does this for all the mlb teams before the season starts in the words of the bloggers for each team. It’s a very creative idea and I look forward to following his blog series titled “Playing Pepper” at his blog: http://www.cardinal70.com . His SF Giants preview doesn’t come out till March 21st but I thought we could just bang this out today.

Now, I think it’s important to note that the Cardinals are one of my all time disliked baseball teams. I’d say *most hated* but I just don’t have too much hate left in me. Winning 2 World Series in 3 years will have a softening effect on any fan. I’d like to say I hate Jose Oquendo, and I did tear up his baseball card and post it at the Flap before the 2012 post season vs the Cardinals. But that was just a silly ceremonial act by a juvenile fan designed to somehow influence the baseball Gods in our favor. Matt Holliday? Ok, I think I hate him a little bit. But truly, all of my past negative feelings related to the Cardinals were *washed away* by the storm in Game 7. As Scutaro said (courtesy of Bozo): “I spent four years in Oakland and I’d never seen rain like that in the Bay Area,” he said. “I’m playing deep at second base, two strikes away, one strike away from the World Series, and all of the sudden you feel this rain coming down. You think, `Is that a message?’ That’s the reason I did that. It came without notice, like, pow! It’s cool that people took a lot of pictures.”.

For me, seeing Matheny stand motionless on the steps of the dugout in the pouring rain completely soaked to the core of his soul was enough to get me to move from *hate* to *sympathy* for the team from St. Louis. And what Giants fan doesn’t love Mike Matheny? So, the past is the past and bygones be bygones, all that jazz, and I’m looking forward to writing this preview for Mr. Shoptaw. I am hoping all of you could take the time to offer a similar preview in the comment section. Hopefully it will paint a broader picture of how we see our team (winner of two of the last three World Series. And since this is for a Cardinal blog I’m gonna try to get that in as many times as possible)

Here are the preview questions:

1) How would you grade the off season?

2) Will Brandon Belt have a full time job this year?

3) What are the chances that Marco Scutaro regresses? (no bitterness from a Cardinal’s fan, why do you ask?)

4) what rookie will make the biggest impact in 2013?

5) What will be the final record of the Giants and where will they finish?

6) What one thing from your team are you most looking forward to watching?

I’ll just answer these and correlate them to the number above.

1) I would grade it a B+. We brought back every critical player from last season. And, unlike our post-2010 World Series win (the first of 2 out of 3 years :)) Sabean brought back a team that isn’t old and declining (and no, I don’t consider Scutaro *old and declining*, more on him later). Sabean also gets a B+ for NOT bringing back Bee Wheezy (who I didn’t want back anyway) and focusing instead on keeping together one of the best bullpen’s in either league. I also liked the Torres signing. His numbers weren’t as bad as they looked last year. His LD%, contact rate and bb % were all up last year. It looks like he’s finally abandoning his love of the long ball and if he can keep his legs healthy I think he will be a nice compliment to Gregor Blanco in a platoon role. Of course, we all wanted the right handed power bat to go out in LF but realistically that wasn’t ever going to happen.

2) Of course Belt will have a full time job this season. I think Posey gets a lot more games behind the dish in this second season removed from his surgery year. When Posey does play first base I think Belt is going to get a fair number of starts in LF. He’ll get his share of time off vs tough lefties but he’ll be a starter all year and I expect a solid year from him with more power.

3) Scutaro got hot at the right time last year and the Giants were the huge beneficiaries. He’s probably the main reason we were able to win our 2nd World Series in the last 3 years. Now, do I think he regresses? We live in an age where any player who has a spike in production is automatically thought to also be spiking something else into their body. I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that Scoots was on the juice last year but I don’t think he was. And while he is 37 I am going to consider him a *young* 37 since he spent the first half of his career as a utility guy. He doesn’t have a lot of miles on that body. And he’s obviously in great shape. So while I don’t expect him to hit .362 in 2013 (as he did for the Giants last year) I do expect him to continue to be a line drive hitting machine and one of the great leaders of the clubhouse. I’ll say he hits .285 in 2013 and I’d be fine with that……

4) This is a long shot, but I’m going to go with Kensuke Tanaka. Now, Tanaka might not even make the team. But I like his story and he’s easy to root for. He left a 3 million dollar guaranteed contract on the table in Japan to come try and latch on with the Giants. He became a fan of the team in 2010 after attending Game 1 of the World Series (a game I also attended). After watching them win their 2nd World Series in the last 3 years in 2012, he decided it was his dream to play for the Giants and he’s now in camp on a minor league deal. He’s 32 and he’s had some severe injuries in his career. He’s also, at best, going to snag the final utility spot on the team and the fact that he only plays 2nd base is not going to give him an advantage. But who couldn’t root for a guy like Tanaka? Plus, we don’t really have too many spots for a rookie to shine. At least, at this point.

5) I think we win 95 games this year and the NL West. And against all odds, since it’s really, really hard to do, I’m going to say we win our 3rd World Series over the course of 4 years.

6) I’m most looking forward to seeing Andres Torres in a Giants uniform again. He was the spirit behind the 2010 World Series win and he’s returning to a team that just won their 2nd World Series in 3 years with almost an entirely different cast of position players. That’s hard to do.  Just seeing him in the dugout will be awesome and I’m rooting for him to cobble together one final decent season for the team he loves so much.

Oh, and did I mention that we’ve won two of the last three World Series? 🙂 🙂 🙂

I did some light googling on this topic earlier today and was surprised at the prevalence of the age-cheaters. As of right now, more than 300 mlb players have signed with a team after presenting the team with a false birth certificate. I was also surprised to read that between 1987 and 2005, the number of Dominican players alone jumped from 50 to 1,443. So clearly, this is has become a big problem facing MLB.

DNA tests and bone scans have reduced the risk and become the preferred method of age verification. I wasn’t able to find how successful these methods have been to the process or how many international players participate  in these tests.

It’s not surprising to me, at all, that this goes on. Young players from the DR are never gonna *walk* their way out of their impoverished homeland. That’s why they all seem to have walk rates of like 5-6% when they make it to the major leagues. And if an edge is to be gained by lowering their age, that’s something that’s understandable, too. If it helps them *get out* and other players are doing it too, it’s easily seen why a player might try to fudge his age by 2 or 3 years. In addition to appearing younger, it allows them to face younger, and theoretically “inferior”,  competition as they rise through the ranks of their developmental leagues. That’s another possible landmine for an MLB scout to side step…….

I’m not too worried about signing a guy who’s 18 when he’s actually 16. I almost prefer it since he’s more likely to get to the big leagues sooner if he’s a little older. I think it’d be a bigger issue for a team that finds out that a player they sign to a 5 year/75 million dollar contract is actually 32, not 30.

And I would guess there’s about an 80% chance that Albert Pujols is 35 or 36 and not his currently reported 33. Good luck to the Angels who still owe him 9 years/224 million. Think about that, they still owe him a 1/4 of a billion dollars and his production is already in a pretty serious decline. “A-Rod of the West”–likely.

This is old news, the Giants signed him as a 16 year old last year. But the wild *buzz* about him at the Flap recently dictated that I write a thread about him (translation: there isn’t much going on in spring training yet).

Supposedly, he’s got a cannon from the outfield and in this video you’ll see that cannon fire off. He’s fast but can’t really hit yet. But he’s young (and wirey) and already being compared to Justin Upton. Here’s a promo vid of him from the Dominican Prospect League

I know the Giants haven’t had any of their international signings pan out yet but when you’re signing 16 year old’s, this is a process that’s going to take some time. And time is something that all Giants fans have these days. Time carries on slowly and fantastically when you are B-A-S-K-I-N-G in the glorious glow of two world series wins in 3 years.

But since I don’t subscribe to The Insider anymore, I don’t really know what they are. 🙂 It’s not the newest news, they came out on Feb 4th.  Maybe some of you have seen the list. I expected us to be ranked near the bottom and, sure enough, we’re ranked 26th.

Here are the top 5 teams:

1. St Louis

2. Minnesota

3. Rays

4. Houston

5.Chicago

Rank #2-5 isn’t surprising, those teams always suck and always have the best draft spots. I was a little surprised to see our great rival The Cardinals ranked #1.

The D-backs were ranked 15th, the Dodgers 18th, and the Padres 6th (he ranked the Padres #1 last year).

I don’t pay too much attention to other team’s farm systems since they’re always so fluid (trades, injuries or just players who never pan out). And even though we’re ranked 26th, we don’t have too many holes to fill so there are enough players in our system to fill the few spots that will come up in the next year or two. One thing that’s a little frustrating is that the Giants have pumped an awful lot of money into their search internationally for players and not seen a very good return on that investment. Yet.

Tim Kawakami wrote an article on the Buster/Timmy relationship at the Merc. You can read it here: http://tinyurl.com/azhpggl

He notes Timmy only pitching to Buster in two of his final 19 starts in 2012 and then goes on to theorize why Bochy kept them *apart* for so many of Tim’s starts. I’ll summarize them and then note the biggest one that Kawakami ignores:

1) they’re just really different dudes. No duh. I can’t imagine they’d be so different that Tim is the only pitcher Buster can’t catch because of a personality difference.

2) Tim liked to pitch to Hector or Eli more than he liked pitching to Buster. If Lincecum is this sensitive I can’t imagine how he ever got to the big league level, much less won 2 Cy Young’s.

3) Posey’s a no-nonsense catcher who “tells his pitcher’s what time it is” and this approach rubs Timmy the wrong way on the mound. Again, if he’s this sensitive, so sensitive as to prefer a catcher who doesn’t say *meanie* words to him, I can’t imagine he’d have gotten as far as he has in his profession.

4) And this is the one Kawakami fails to discuss and I think it’s the most important reason why Posey basically stopped catching Tim in his last 19 starts: Tim is very difficult to catch. And Bochy had the brilliant plan of resting Posey’s ankle throughout the season, ultimately getting him around 100 at bats at first base last year. Pitcher’s are creatures of habit. It was the perfect match to give Buster day’s off from catching an unpredictable pitcher like Lincecum in a predictable rotation that fell on Tim’s starts (allowing regular rest for the ankle and allowing Tim to pitch to a predictable catcher). Resting Posey turned out to be a brilliant move since it was clear he played the playoff’s on his last gallon of gas and adrenaline. Without the regular rest he would probably have been worthless in the 2013 playoffs and then where would we have been?

I suppose there’s a 5th possibility (another one that Kawakami fails to address) having to do with pitch selection. But I haven’t ever noticed Tim shaking off Buster all game. I also haven’t ever heard about a pitch selection rift or seen Lincecum give up a bomb and then glare at Posey. So I don’t think pitch selection is it. But if it is, why not just have Raggs call the game from the dugout. Roger Craig did it for every pitcher on his staff, the Giants could certainly do the same if this was actually the issue…….

My guess is that Posey will get about half as many starts at 1st base this year. The ankle is stronger and he can catch more games behind the dish. And I’m fully expecting to see the Tim/Buster battery working regularly together in this upcoming 2013 season…..

We checked one important date off today, pitcher’s and catcher’s are all in camp today.

The first ST game to be played is February 23rd vs the Angels.

The Bay Bridge (yawn) Series is being played on March 28th, 29th and 30th.

And then the off season is put out of it’s misery with the glorious opening day game on April 1st. We play the Dodgers down at their hizzle for 3 and then come back to SF for 3 against St Louis. That’s a series that should be riveting from start to finish. I’d like to see one or two pitches end up in MH’s ribs…….

May is highlighted by a 2 game diddy up in Toronto. I can’t recall playing them but maybe I’ve just forgotten it. Near the end of the month we play 4 vs the A’s (two at their place, 2 at ours).

A bunch of games are scheduled for June.

And July….

In August we go to Tampa Bay to play 3 at their place– I’m positive we’ve never played a game vs the Rays. Right? Or am i just totally losing it? And then the Orioles come to AT&T for three games. I’m really looking forward to that series and hope I’m around to go to at least 1 or 2 of those games. Growing up I always liked the Orioles (for no real reason, I just liked their name and their manager).

September is going to be wild with four games down in LA then we travel to New York for three vs the Mets followed by 3 vs the Yankees. I know many people who have already planned a work trip out there for that series.

When looking at this year’s schedule, what jumps out for you guys?

Do you care if Timmy has a crappy spring training? Cause odds are, he will. His LOWEST spring ERA in 6 seasons is 4.03 (2009).

Do you care if Zito pitches well this spring? Everyone remembers last year’s spring implosion but in 2011 he actually had a very good spring (2.30 ERA). There is talk now of the team not just picking up his 2014 option but offering him an EXTENSION. Thoughts?

Do you care how fat Pablo is gonna look to you? Cause you know he’s gonna look enormous. Are we to the point of looking past his vastness and just concentrating on his hitting?

Do you care about Angel Villalona the ballplayer or is he just straight circus-freak entertainment to you?  Do you have any expectations for him this spring other than that he loosely resemble the physical dimensions of a professional athlete? If so, what are your expectations?

Do you care if Gary Brown hits .472 this spring? If he does, do you give him the “Randy Elliott” fast track ticket to SF or do you ignore a .472 batting average and send him back to Fresno for more seasoning?

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This is kinda for the last thread, but whatever. One of my all time favorite shirts from my favorite sports bar in Palo Alto (The Old Pro). I’ve had people in sportsbooks literally try to buy this shirt off my back:

When I was at Fan Fest, one of the things that sucked was the sound system. The players were getting interviewed at a KNBR stage set up around the pitchers mound and there was a lot of feedback that made it hard to hear everything that was being said. So when I got back to my car and turned on the radio, the first player interview I really got to hear was Ryan Vogelsong. It’s really a treat to listen to Voggy talk. He’s not one of those pro athletes that goes on auto-pilot when he’s interviewed. He speaks from the heart and gives his honest feelings about the question he’s asked or the point he’s trying to make. It’s refreshing.

He said something about coaches that wasn’t a new idea but it got my attention. He was talking about how much he loves having Mark Gardner and Dave Righetti as coaches. He said that, between the two of them, there’s literally no situation on the mound they haven’t been through or that they couldn’t help him with. And then he goes, “How the hell am I supposed to sit there on the mound listening to some pitching coach who never pitched above a-ball tell me how to get Albert Pujols out?”

And then he let out a big laugh.

And while it’s not a new concept of working best with a coach who’s “been there, done that,” it made me wonder just how important it really is. I’m not going to go through and check how many mlb pitching coaches ever pitched at the major league level and/or compare the success rate of those who did vs those who didn’t. That takes up a lot of time and I still need to scour the internet for an acceptable BBOTD.

But it’s a good conversation to kick around as we sit here but two short days away from spring training starting……

OK. that’s “The Onion” headline…

Here’s some fellas who showed up for delousing last year and have moved on, didn’t get another invite, or just proved to be, uh-lousy..
Hector Corrrea,Steve Edlefsen,Clay Hensley,Danny Otero,Travis Blackley,Brian Burres,Justin Fitzgerald, Austin Fleet, Stephen Harrold, Mitch Lively, Andrew Kown, Ramon Ortiz, David Quinowski,Wilmin Rodriguez,Shawn Sanford, Matt Yourkin,Chris Stewart ,Eli Whiteside, Tommy Joseph, Andrew Susac,Jackson Williams

No, it’s not an error- someone’s gonna say Danny Otero was here last year, too. Not so fast- this year he’s showing up as “Dan” Otero. The guy has figgered out that Bruce likes mature relievers- ain’t no “Danny” grabbing that 7th pen spot.

Correa- the kid we got for the pleasantly plump catcher, you know who-Ronny Paulino. We sent Taschner to the Phillies for Ronny Paulino, and promptly flipped him to the Florida Marlins for Hector Correa.. who is: somewhere.

Ramon Ortiz- moved on to steal innings elsewhere- had a nice AAA season for the Yanks, think he’s in Blue Jay organization now.

Travis Blackley- bounced around after we got him from Seattle for Jason Ellison- he worked his way back here only to be DFAed last year. Had purty fair campaign with the A’s…

David Quinowski- Huh:? Who? Ended up with the Lincoln Saltdogs, with Derek Coverstone, Asif Shah, and other luminaries.

Whitey- had a whirlwind offseason- I think the Saltdogs just became the 14th team to sign him and release him 4 hours later..

Joseph- Mr. Light Tower Power went to the Phils for the Preacher. No complaints…….yet.

And so it goes- Pitchers and Catchers Day is a beginning for many, life goes on for others, and the end of the road for a few. This wiil be an especially tough time for the hopefuls this year- there might be just *ONE* spot spot in the battery up for grabs…
And the chance for this…

I had decided not to go but I didn’t close the door on it completely. Around 10:30am I got a call from one of Katie’s friends and she was invited to go to a Chinese New’s Year’s parade. Not asking questions other than “Can I drop her off in like 5 minutes?” I hung up the phone and whisked her down the hill. It takes about 45 minutes to get to AT&T from my house so time was of the essence. In the rush I forgot my jersey and I felt the lameness of that move as I was driving up 4th Street when I suddenly rammed my car straight into night time; felt like around midnight. Either that or it was Halloween, I couldn’t tell. Black everywhere, orange and black everywhere, it was a world of *my people* all making their way up 4th to the stadium. Pawlie would have fallen down on his knees and starting crying…..

Having not prepared even a little bit for this trip, I quickly discovered I was not doing this in a skillful way. Besides forgetting my jersey and hat I passed all 4 parking lots with *full* signs on them. I flipped a be-atch and started slow riding up and down interior streets away from the park. It was mostly all construction though I did keep passing a sign to a hospital or something. Every time I saw the sunrise of a possible parking space on the street my hopes would get dashed as it turns out there are an inordinate number of fire hydrants in San Francisco. Just as I was literally about to give up since I had driven so far away from the stadium I could almost justify being *on my way home* I drove by a city park and found a rogue, empty space at the end of a dead end. I was in the sticks. Literally. I got out of my car and there was a group of dudes swinging long sticks in the air at each other:

As much as I wanted to ask these cats if I could join in on all the *fun* I started my long walk off toward the ballpark. After walking for a while I came upon this glorious spectacle and knew I was almost there:

I patted myself on the back a few times for choosing this activity over whatever the fuck the stickmen were doing a long way away and I headed into the ballpark:

That looks like a big group of fans casually commingling but it’s actually LOOOOOONG separate lines of fans lined up to meet the players. I never got nearly close enough to see an actual player. Not one. A little perspective on that later in this post when I upload some of my dad’s fanfest picks from 2008 (or so).

I waited in a long line to go down on the field. I’d never been on the field, it was cool to walk on it:

I finally walked back up into the right field lower box seats and took this shot. I’m assuming this resembles a crowd at a regular season Oakland A’s game:

Finally I decided to have some mustard for lunch with a little bit of hot dog thrown in as a side dish:

Of course that made me think of the hot dog I bought when me and San Diggity Dawg went to a game:

Yeah, I ate both of them……..

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And then I left. My dad’s wife Diane sent me these pics from the fanfest they went to circa 2007/2008. Times have changed, eh? I didn’t ask him but I don’t even think he stood in line to get these shots.

Anyway, I’m glad I went even though I didn’t see a single player (other than on the big screen being interviewed by the KNBR crew). Being around the energy and the aura of fellow Giants fans was enough to make it all worth the trip.

I’ve never been and I don’t think I’m going this year. I don’t have anything special going on instead, I’m just not looking forward to the heat I’d catch from ‘Dirt for the atrocious string of BB’s I’ve been churning out lately. 🙂 I might go, but it’s clear that the only reason my kid wants to go is to ride the train and that might not be enough to keep her goin’ all the way through all this:
(Craig made it! Blew 5 bucks already)

The lines to see/talk to the players promise to be interminable and Flavor doesn’t like to wait in lines unless it’s at a Wingstop. The Giants have listed off the *Top 10 Reasons to go to Fanfest* and it looks something like this:

10/9/8/7: buy tickets and gear

6: walk the field

5: get your face painted and visit the slide (And even if Katie stays home, this might turn the trip into a go* for me) 🙂

4/3/2: buy more shit.

1: talk to the players

I dunno, the face painting is enticing but I’m guessing that I’ll be a little too far away to do much “talking” to the players. My dad went a couple of years back in the “Rowand Era”– a desolate time, he said like 6 fans showed up. And as you can imagine, he got some great close up pics. I’ll see if he can send some to me today and I’ll upload them as/if they come in……

Have fun to any of you who are making the trek out to the yard today…….

Spring training for the Giants is probably not going to see too many surprises with pretty much every player role already set. That’s why it will be fun to follow the progress of still-young Angel Villalona who apparently has slimmed down enough to vaguely resemble a professional athlete and get his visa. Remember that last year? I can’t recall the exact wording but the reason giving by the people who issue visas in the DR, was that there was no way they were gonna issue him a work visa to be a pro baseball player as they had scientifically determined that he could not possibly be a professional athlete due to all of his fatness. Like I said, the official wording was a bit different but that’s how I recall it……

He played in the Dominican Summer league and hit to a line of .303/.430/.497 with 7 big flies in 44 games. Not sure what he’s been doing since then, he must not have been able to get down to Venezuela to play in their winter league.

But he’s put his settled murder case behind him as well as a country mile of cleaned dinner plates and he’s headed back to the USA to play ball for the Giants. Likely, this will be an underwhelming story, maybe his inclusion on the spring team had something to do with the 5 million dollar lawsuit he was going to sue the Giants for (breach of contract) before the two sides reportedly settled.

I’m anxious to get a good look at this fella and will start praying now that he and Pablo aren’t bad influences on each other in line at the lunch spread……..

Pardon me for interrupting with an Non SF Giants/American League post, but the Mariners are straight stupid. This one might actually be dumber than the 8 year/184 million $ deal that Mauer scored. At least you could reasonably be able to count on Mauer playing first base or DH in the last 4 or 5 years of that deal…..

King Felix is a stud, there’s no denying it. He won a Cy Young in 2010 after winning only 13 games but had underlying CY numbers that killed it. It was the first time ever that voters literally tossed wins out of the equation. His CY was almost seen as an equal victory for the field of sabermetrics…..

He was fantastic last year too, tossing 232 innings and striking out 223. He threw a perfect game. He’s the definition of a *horse*.

But Seattle isn’t in a position of making a bunch of financial mistakes. They aren’t the Angels or the Dodgers, two teams who could care less about a contract performing as they can just re-load and fire away on another expensive FA player if the first one gets hurt or sucks.

Seattle is all-in with this mega deal. And they’re all in on a freaking pitcher. A 27 year old guy who just finished his 8th season with the team—1,620.1 innings are logged on to that right arm. And while his underlying numbers are still mostly holding themselves together at an elite level there is this little diddy to consider:

His average fastball for the last five years:

2007: 95.6 mph

2008: 94.6 mph

2009: 94.0 mph

2010: 94.1 mph

2011: 93.3 mph

2012: 92.1 mph….

Giants fans cringe at numbers like these as they’ve had to painfully watching Timmy’s descend into a similar black hole. Dodger fans get to watch Josh Beckett’s slowing fastball next year, too…….

King Felix is a stud, he may be big and strong enough to never get hurt. He may ultimately re-invent himself and become a knuckleballer or a pin-point soft tosser once the fastball hits Zito levels. But I’m being honest here, I don’t think I can name another pitcher on the Mariners roster right now except *Charlie Furbush* and that’s only because I think he has a funny name.

The Mariners just shot their entire (money) wad all over a guy who is literally their only current relevant pitcher. And we all know how teams do who sport nothing after their single good starting pitcher. As the years tick off and Hernandez’ fastball continues to dip along with his success, how stoked are they gonna be to be paying him 25 million dollars a year to pitch for their last place team?

I admit to being a sick ambulance chaser when it comes to these gynormous deals. Almost all of them fail (CC’s has held up) and I have total confidence in Brian Sabean that he will never sign another free agent pitcher to a dumb Zito/Rowand deal ever again. Sit back and watch the carnage unfold, Giants fans. Another team just bit the dust today……..

I’m thinking the M’s might want to consider moving those fences back next year, maybe even adding 70-80 feet. They’re gonna need ’em to keep their opposition under 10 runs each game in the coming years………

That’s quite a deal Sergio just scored. The 3.5 million was the deal he was going to get anyway via arbitration. Dropping another 5.5 million in there is a suspect decision for two reasons:

1) The only way he has a lights out 40+ save year is if he stays healthy all season and avoids injuring one of his many achy body parts. He pitches with two braces and while I don’t have medical documents at the ready to back me, I would suspect that throwing that insane frisbee slider is not easy on the elbow on a game to game basis. He can’t pitch all season as a front line closer. Book it.

2) And if he doesn’t have a lights out 40+ save season, what is the point of guaranteeing him 5.5 million next year? That’s just giving money away that you don’t have to risk. Romo’s not going anywhere, they control him in 2014……

Sabes did the same thing with Bee Wheezy before the 2011 season and that didn’t work out too well. And before anyone wants to try NOT connecting the two deals, recognize that Romo is a HUGE injury risk if he’s used as a top flight closer.

And if they do go CBC then why the f**k give him a deal that pays him 5.5 next year?

They saved nothing out of this deal, they were going to have to pay him 3.5 million anyway if they went to arbitration.

Dumb, on many, many levels…….

Ok, I can’t look at that last thread anymore. I don’t have anything real baseball-y to talk about but I must start a new thread. It’s all part of the healing process……..

The Mariners and the Padres are moving their fences in this year. The Mets did it last year. Personally, I think it’s bad idea. It’s not a resolution to anything. All it does is look pretty to the fans and, in theory, sell more tickets. But I can’t imagine that those fans are going to be any happier watching their team lose 8-6 as opposed to 2-1. Another possible argument is that it will make both teams more appealing to free agent hitters who otherwise wouldn’t consider them. Also a dumb idea. The Giants have proven that a world series team isn’t built with expensive free agent hitters. Money needs to get poured into the draft with the emphasis on stock piling young pitchers,  scouting and an expansive presence overseas designed to identify and develop the best young talent the world has to offer.

Signing expensive free agents is nothing more than a PR move. It looks good to the fan base. But by the time a free agent actually hits free agency, he’s very likely already produced the best part of his career on the back of his baseball card. And even if the decline hasn’t already started, it will begin soon.

Seattle and San Diego don’t have the dough to keep signing big $ free agents so they did the next best quick fix thing: move the fences in. It’s a lazy approach to trying to fix the holes in your team. And it’s not going to work for either.

The favorite part of AT&T, for me, is Triples Alley. When we traded for the great Angel Pagan I think I said at the time that he’d hit about a billion triples at ATT. I was off by a few, but he did blast a franchise record 15 to go along with 38 doubles. He ended up with only 8 bombs but I doubt he lost too many at AT&T. But who cares, he’s not a home run hitter. But he was the perfect bat for Sabean to go out and get.

I’d be so bummed if they moved the fences in at AT&T.

I’ve had many people tell me today that it’s just a game, get over it, etc. I see the point but I am not simply *moving on* from this. This was destructive to my soul—a Super Bowl that could not have been more winnable was lost for a bunch of dumb ass reasons. First and goal from the 6. This was a moment for Frank Gore. Or Kap to make a play instead of call that dumb audible. Or Joe’s ghost to appear as if from nowhere. None of that happened. And while a deserving team won, a team I respect, I can’t stop myself from being consumed with regret. I can’t remember ever feeling like this after a sporting event and YES I’m the guy who started a drive from Portland to San Francisco to kill Roger Craig. But I barely made it on the freeway that day. This one didn’t make me mad. It just made me sad………

I remember, as you all do, everything about the other 5. Where I watched them, what I ate, the color of my shirt. Back in ’81, The Chronicle had a contest where you guessed the exact number of passing yards that Joe Montana would have in the game. My buddy down the street had a paper route and he and I concocted a fellowship that involved me and him cutting out the entry forms from the Chron at 4am the morning the papers were delivered to his house. We were going to split the *winnings*–don’t recall what they were. We settled on a range that went from like 200 to 350 yards. Montana had 157 yards passing on that great day and the newspaper game loss meant nothing to me. I watched the game by myself, alone and sick as fuck, on my mom’s blue couch. It was one of the happiest times I can remember from my childhood.

This weekend I was in Reno with all my old college buddies who agreed to converge there on the evening we won the NFC Championship game 2 weeks ago. A bunch of texts flying around coupled with 6 drunk Niner fans who grew up in the eighties was enough to make it happen. As we placed our bets on Saturday and Sunday, there were SO MANY groups of guys in the sports book who were clearly doing the same thing. A bunch of middle aged men all decked out in their Niner jersey’s— Lott, Montana, Rice, etc. It wasn’t just a bunch of old friends reaquainting, it was a bunch of little friendship cells finding their collective long lost pride. Niner Pride. Knowing dude head nods were on full display and I probably fist-bumped 200 strangers this weekend……

My buddy Dave had a party that I attended until halftime when I decided it was clear I had to leave and go someplace else to change the karma and get us this win. Bummed to leave, it was a fun party, but a superstitious fan has to do what he’s gotta do. And I’m not superstitious by nature but I had to get the fuck out of there. I was tired of watching my language around the kids at the party, something I was only doing at about a 50% clip anyway. So I left, alone, and went down to the El Dorado to watch the game with strangers. Anyway, Dave has a chick who has a son and he had some friends over, too. They’re all around 12 years old. They were so excited for the game and I had to remind myself that they’ve never experienced a Super Bowl win. We told them some stories from our past about the five previous glorious wins. They were mesmerized and you could see how bad they wanted it, to feel the same way me and my old friends felt 30 years ago.

The house was dark when I got back to Dave’s so I didn’t get to witness the carnage at the end, the sadness on the faces of those kids. It was late and I decided to make some tacos to ease my pain. As I sat there eating, and they were fantastic, things didn’t start getting better. But I did find a ray of sunlight in the darkness that was Dave’s kitchen: I stopped to appreciate how thankful I am and always will be for those five Super Bowl wins. And when we win our 6th, I will celebrate like a 12 year old, just like it’s  our first………

I hate that word. Charlie Sheen ruined it for me with his obsessive hubris.

But there was a time when that’s all I knew. Joe Montana taught me that. Bill Walsh taught me that. Ronnie Lott. Jerry Rice. It’s a short list, but it was well taught.

First and goal from the 6….

I’m never gonna get over this….

I’ve been a sports fan ever since my dad taught me how to read by shoving that dull green Sporting Green in my face and saying “Read”. You don’t stop to think about it too much, but the goal of every season, no matter the sport, is to win it all. Obviously there’s a lot more that goes into it and the entertainment and joy you get out of watching a season’s worth of games is priceless. Being a fan is just part of who I am. It’s part of my identity.

But I’m pretty rigid, I don’t like all sports. My fan interest goes baseball, football, horse racing, basketball and golf. After those 5 the rest of the list degenerates into a black hole that includes hockey, soccer and swimming. I call that hole “The Olympics” and with each passing year that hole gets a little blacker……

SF Giants Titles:

2010 and 2012. They have 5 other titles but I feel like a bit of a hanger-on to claim the first 5.

SF 49ers (I hate trying to figure out the actual year a  team wins the super bowl. I feel like you should count just the year they played almost all of their games but they win the actual title in January (and now February) of the NEXT year. College football is even worse with bowls that are won on January 1st. It’s an annoying pet peeve of mine. Anyway, for the purposes of this blog post I will just list off the years they played all of their regular season games):

1980, 1983, 1987, 1988, 1994

Stanford Cardinal:

Rose Bowl winners in 1970, 1971 and 2012

Golden State Warriors (it’s a little easier to split the championship years up when you talk about an NBA championship):

1974-75

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Now, I was too young to celebrate the Dub’s title so while I count it, I don’t count it the same way I count the other 8. Same with the Cardinal Rose Bowls from ’70 and ’71. Seeing Jim Plunkett in person does nothing for me. Seeing Joe Montana in person causes me to nearly sport wood and I turn into a goofy, babbling mess. So, if you’re keeping score at home, the two Giants titles, the five Niner titles and this year’s Rose Bowl win (and even though I said “this year” I’m talking about the 2012 football season goddammit)  are emblazoned on my soul for eternity……..

I didn’t learn how to appreciate those rare 8 seasons until around 2008 or 2009. Around 2004, my 4 favorite sports teams went into a cumulative fourway suckfest for multiple years in a row. The Niners carried me through the 80’s and almost all of the Nineties. The Giants covered the latter part of the eighties and a few years in the nineties as well as the first part of the current millennium. Stanford had their share of bowl wins and appearances sprinkled in over the years. The Warriors had Run-TMC and a fun little first round playoff win vs Dallas……

But by 2009 or so, I was dealing with the unknown, uncomfortable feeling of not being able to fire off my customary “knowing dude head nod” to my fellow *knowing dudes* who I would pass on the street or see at a bar. My teams all sucked. And I didn’t like that feeling…..

And then 2010 happened. And to reinforce the feeling, 2012 happened courtesy of the Giants and The Cardinal. And the Niners came back to their rightful spot atop the football world last year when they just missed the Super Bowl. Now we ARE in the Super Bowl. And being a Niner fan, the only feeling I have about this game  is a dominating sense of swelled pride. So I expect tomorrow to be a very, very good day in the life I lead on the earth that I walk. But regardless of the outcome I will stop, many times, to appreciate the moment. Over the course of a sports fan’s life, days like tomorrow are few and far between………

Jesus, I’m not sure I can take any more Super Bowl *hype*. I think I could handle hype about the game but that’s not what we’ve gotten this week. Deer antler spray, homophobic hysteria from that dolt Culliver and now a whiny cheerleader complaining about being left off the Ravens cheerleader squad because she gained 1.8 pounds. It’s all a bunch of nonsense. Play the game already and put these story lines out of their misery…….

The Panda’s team just won the Venezuelan Winter League Championships, of which he was named the MVP. I’ve been spending my normal amount of winter time worrying about how large he’s gotten since last November. Here’s a recent pic of him celebrating his home run and he looks about the same to me:

The fact is, he spent his off season playing baseball and that is probably the best thing for him. There were reports that his abdominal pain hospitalization was caused by a disease called colitis. That’s a little scary, that’s a serious condition. But there are many different types of colitis so I guess we should wait and see what’s going on with him. In many cases people who have colitis are put on a steroid called Prednisone with one of the main side effects being a swelling of the face. I’m not sure if The Panda’s face could tolerate such a side effect.

But until we know more, life probably couldn’t be much better than it is right now for Sandoval.