A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

We traded Monell for cash. I’ll guess $25,000. I’m sure that haul will hit the team bank account hard. By the way, beers at AT&T are going up a buck next season……

Now we explore the exciting possibilities of what The Great Peguero might bring us. $50,000? I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to sleep tonight. When I do finally drift off I know what my first dream will be:  If we some day ever trade Erik Cordier or Jose de Paula could we possibly net 75K for the both of them? I’ll sleep on the old linens tonight just in case that dream gets out of hand……..

Brian Sabean is now doddering around like an old man muttering to himself at the race track, every now and then picking up losing tickets off the floor and hoping to find a winner. Pathetic……

Does that do anything fer ya? I don’t think bringing back Vogelsong was Bruce Jenkin’s idea of nailing down that final fifth starter. It’s nice that the Giants got him for about half what they would have had to pay him if they had picked up his option. Decent business move, I guess.

If Sabean were playing Colleti in chess, this move would equal moving your pawn a couple of spots forward with no real plan for what to do next. This is not a move that allows us to be *at least as good* as the Dodger pitching staff.

Voggy’s biggest question is whether he can regain his velocity or not. It’s possible he wasn’t able to find it because of the injury and it’s hard to come back mid season after missing so much time. Or maybe he’s just gotten too old. It happens quickly sometimes. Just ask Ted Lilly.

I’m now watching an off season that is starting to worry me. Sabean has spent most of his time just re-signing all the guys who barely kept them out of last place last season. And Tim Hudson, while a nice addition, isn’t going to be able to make up that many games in the win column. He’s only one man.

Left Field is a massive problem. Our offense sucks. And our pitching, in the best case scenario, still isn’t as good as the Dodgers staff. Things are dark and gloomy. Could be time for some haiku’s to perk me up but I feel like that’s at least a month too early. If we start writing them now what will we do a month from now?

Nolasco signed with The Twins. Terms haven’t been disclosed yet. Man, how much would it suck if your pitching staff was The Twins? Nolasco instantly becomes their ace with Correia and Deduno the #2/#3. I don’t think they’ve sorted out #4/#5 yet. That’s a small problem they might want to address.

Bruce Jenkins was on KNBR today, I caught a bit of it while I was driving around finishing off last second birthday present purchases (my daughter turned 11 today). When asked if the Giants need to make another move he instantly and confidently said *yes* that they have to fill LF hole and find a 5th starter. He emphasized the 5th starter (he said Arroyo) because of something I hadn’t really considered. He said that if the Giants aren’t going to be able to compete with the Dodgers payroll-wise (few could) the Giants need to at least field a starting 5 that is as good as the Dodgers starting 5 and that the only way they could come close to doing that is to go rock solid (if not spectacular) from 1 through 5. He didn’t say this, but the assumption was that there was no way they could field 8 position players that matched the Dodgers 8 starting position players so matching their starting pitchers would be the most realistic goal for Sabean if all he has to do is add one more starting pitcher. And frankly, Jenkins’ point made a ton of sense…..

He was also asked a stupid hypothetical question of would it make sense for the Giants to trade Panda to the A’s for Cespedes (or, would the teams make that deal). He immediately said “of course the Giants would do it but there’s no way the A’s would.” And he’s right. His reasoning didn’t include the most important reason and that’s that the A’s have one of the best 3rd basemen in all of baseball in Josh Donaldson so why would they want to add the Panda? But all of his others reasons were sound, too. The A’s would be fools to gift us Cespedes for Sandoval. Too bad, how exciting would it be if that trade ever actually happened?

This is a fantastic post:

And while Blade didn’t author most of it and I never read the article, it speaks to the backward-ass way that most teams operate…..

A player doesn’t get to free agency until he plays in 6 full seasons at the major league level. Six years is a long time, at any level of any professional sport. Athlete’s bodies break, sometimes quickly but without question they fail over time. Baseball GM’s do a good job of managing these players and getting the most production possible out of them during their indentured time. But they don’t start paying them big bucks until the peak of their career has ended. How stupid is that? The ultimate goal of all professional teams should be to stock pile players that produce more value on the field than what they get paid. If you look at WAR, player value is 5 mil per win. But with free agents it’s 9 million per win. Is there a simpler numerical disparity that highlights the stupidity of signing free agents in baseball?

With the sweet cable deals that are fueling revenue for ALL mlb teams right now it’s difficult to guess where baseball goes with free agency in the future. There is a ton of dough out there and it’s getting spent on players who are on the Coke Bottle slide of their career. No one know what owners are making off each of their players. Wins are one thing, merchandise and TV deals are another. Fans look at a deal and just assess the total dollars paid out and the years of the deal. I think that might be the best example of how clueless we fans are to the financial side of how professional sports are operated………

If I were an owner,  I would operate my team by not giving a single sh!t about the back of a player’s baseball card. Why pay him tens of millions of dollars for what he did for your competitor? Still, the owners all look fat and happy. They probably sit around laughing at us……

Like several other players busted in the Biogenesis bust, Jhonny Peralta got 50 games of unpaid leave, publicly humiliating himself and the fake stats he generated while on the juice as well as leaving his team in the lurch as the playoff stretch run kicked into high gear. In exchange for this consequence, the St Louis Cardinals handed him 52 million dollars–that’s more than 3 times what the Blue Jays gave to Fake Website Guy. And there are a half a dozen teams tripping over themselves to sign Nelson Cruz. He’ll probably get 80 million+.

Clearly, the consequence for failing a drug test isn’t working. 50 games? No problemo. More time to work on my Summer tan. 100? Sure, I’ll bide my time by pumping out extra sets in the gym and banging hot chicks while my team forages on without me.

I find it beyond hypocritical that there are teams and fans around the country who want to asterisk (*) Barry Bonds but those same teams and fans are handing over millions of dollars to known steroid offenders and celebrating their arrival. If Jhonny Peralta were to break Bonds’ single season home run record next year (yes, this example is just for the sake of argument) would the Cardinals organization celebrate it or asterisk (*) it?

I could care less if players take steroids. Hell, they should be required to take them. As a fan, I have the right to expect to see the best athlete that science can produce! Yes, kidding. But really, I don’t care if they take them. Just don’t get caught. And mlb’s drug program is NOT working. The Biogenesis scandal came to light  because a minion in the organization ratted the operation out—it wasn’t like all those guys failed drug tests. Well, besides Braun, and we know what a fiasco that turned into.

I don’t know what the drug policy should be. The tide seems to have turned in terms of player acceptance of cheating, many players came out publicly against the players caught up in the Bio-bust. That wouldn’t have happened 5-10 years ago. But those same players are now watching these guys apologize and come back to 52 million dollar deals waiting for them. How long will the swell of player disapproval last if that keeps happening?

While other teams are busy wheeling and dealing, the Giants quietly announced the signing of Javier Lopez. Excuse me if I don’t celebrate this move. It’s nice. Great to have him back. But I’d like to point out that the only new player added to last year’s near-last place team is Tim Hudson. And I’m happy to have Huddy come aboard. It’s just that, well, this off season is starting to have that *underwhelming* feel to it.

The Cardinals boldly went out and got Peter Bourjos. The Tigers brazenly traded away Prince Fatso. And those were teams that good last year. We were not good last year. We could not hit last year. And excuse me if I don’t trust Sabean to sit on his hands until the 2014 trade deadline before he trades for a competent left fielder. And our bench is a joke.

Big Game today. Go Cardinal.

I didn’t know a lot about Michael Weiner. Donald Fehr turned me off to anyone who led that union. I heard he had inoperable brain cancer a few months ago, didn’t think much of it. But over the last hour I have read several articles about what an amazing person he was. He was 51.

I didn’t think a single thing about baseball immediately after I heard that he had died. I thought about his 3 daughters. I googled around a bit to find out how old they are but didn’t find their ages. I didn’t google too hard, it would have probably just bummed me out. I can’t imagine what it would be like to leave my only daughter behind much less 3 of them.

Lots of players are tweeting about this, their condolences and sadness seems genuine. But if this guy was as awesome as everyone says he was, I just keep wondering what his kids must be feeling tonight. Sounds like they just lost the best dad in the world.

Ken Rosenthal wrote a piece about him today. I guess they were friends or had become friends. He started the article by saying he was introduced to Weiner by player’s agent who said “He is the smartest, fairest, kindest person you will ever meet.” He ended the article with this: “That agent from many years ago had it right. Michael Weiner was the smartest, fairest kindest person I’ve ever met. And there isn’t even a close second.”

When you read something like that you should feel disappointed that you didn’t know this man. At least, I did. And I can’t shake the feeling tonight of how sad his 3 daughters are tonight. I can only imagine how devastated he was to leave his family so early, so unexpectedly. ANd if he’s anything like he sounds like he was, he was most devastated for them….

Still kind of reeling from the Fielder/Kinsler trade. Not sure what Texas is doing but if you don’t care about money I guess it’s a move that could work out in their favor. On the flip side of that bold trade, we had Larry Baer trying to shift fan’s focus away from any off season moves that might acquire a starting left fielder by saying: “In 2010 and 2012 LF was basically a platoon situation too and we went and got help mid season (Burrell, Ross, Pence).” I think that is a dangerous path to travel. The Giants couldn’t be any thinner at pretty much every non-pitching position. One guy goes down, we’re screwed. Heck, we might be screwed if they all manage to stay up.

Our pitching staff continues to strengthen with the anticipated signing of Javier Lopez. We still have an obvious hole in left field and our bench. We need 4 reliable outfielders who can be seen as legitimate starting outfielders. We have 2. And if Pagan goes down again our offense will be stuck again. Blanco is a decent enough 4th, but I don’t want him in a platoon role……

I’m praying that Sabean pulls off a trade for a starting left fielder (or even starting center fielder who would slide Pagan to LF).

Who would you target in a trade, and what would you give up?

I like the signing, Huddy is a bridge to Crick et al (or just: Crick). Any 2 year deal is fantastic and it’s not our money so who cares how much they spend over 2 years? I’ve gotten several texts from my idiot A’s friends who’ve mocked the Lincecum and Huddy deals but they’re looking at this from a broken perspective. Every A’s fan looks at the dollar attached to the contract, regardless of the context. Newsflash: there’s so much money infused from the new tv deal that ANY team could increase their spending and still have dough left over. Even Beane could do this and he looks under the couch cushions at the office every night.

To win at the mlb level in today’s world you need to limit the long term deals. Sabean has finalized 2 FANTASTIC two 2 year deals so far this off season. I couldn’t be happier with these signings. Hopefully Voggy takes a pauper’s deal and he comes back as the #5. Or maybe he doesn’t, who cares, Sabean has brilliantly filled out the 3/4 and any team in either league would take Petit as a #5. And Gaudin is still gently grabbing titties in the ER to stay off the DL next year……

Huddy comes with some risk, that’s beyond obvious. He’s done ok at ATT: 52 innings, 3.81 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, .256 batting average against. But his ERAx was 97 last year, the lowest of his career, and that’s not very good—-that’s a number adjusted to his ballpark. 100 is the league average. He’s been well above 100 for most of his career.

But I am supporting this deal, as I did the Lincecum deal, and will stand up and admit I’m wrong if proven so. That rarely happens though……

El Presidente just signed a minor league deal with the Cubs. I hope Eli Whiteside thanks the baseball gods each and every night for the continued and ongoing gift bestowed by them of getting to play professional baseball year in and year out. He’s 34, including his world series shares from ’10 and ’12 he’s made close to 3 million dollars in his career. Plus all the meal money. 🙂 Still, the last time he hit over .200 at the mlb level was 2010. Last year he played for about 37 different organizations, ending with Texas for 67 games where he hit .187 at triple A. So of course it makes sense that Chicago offered him a contract….

Speaking of ex-Giants, the Refrigerator Mover, Randy Messenger, just re-signed with a team in Japan. He’s 34…..

*El Presidente* and *The Refrigerator Mover*— 2 of the great nicknames generated by Flap vets……

Not a fun afternoon of football if you’re a Niner fan. Pfffftttttt……

But it’s interesting how we transition from sport to sport, isn’t it? It would be beyond weird to watch a baseball game right now. Hockey doesn’t exist in my life and the NBA has really been a tough go for me to get into this year.

But football, NFL and NCAA, has been about exciting as it gets. I don’t gamble on games but the fantasy side of football is non-stop go-time. It almost made today’s Niner failure tolerable. Well, that’s the wrong word. Fantasy football *distracted* me from the Niner game? That’s better.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I’m allowed to gamble on fantasy sports and the horses legally, not to mention any lotto ticket I choose to partake in, but I’m not allowed to play poker online or bet on a football game. I guess it’s that W-2G thing that’s the hang up. If I ran the government, I’d tax cigs, alcohol and gambling winnings at 50%. And I’d allow any and all gambling on the internet. Tax the shit out of those 3 things. Whores too. Problem….still there. But, it would be a start.

Ok, thanks for listening.

I’m beyond tired on reading mlbtraderumors.com. It started out as an innovative site before twitter and everything else *caught up*, now it’s just a hodge-podge of tweets that are 90% fabrications and hopeful stabs that the first tweeter hopes he hits before anyone else. Anyone can make something up hoping it comes true one day. Anyway, not interested in the slightest in checking that site more than once a day, at most.

But I do enjoy their free agent prediction contest…..

I couldn’t figure out a way to do a poll that was easy to work with, at least as it related to Twin’s now deleted thread of all possible targets this off season. So I’m going to just do this:

and please, take into consideration what all these players will cost when you vote. Consider value. I’m not going to post what they all should/might get in free agency, it should be a ballpark this crew already knows…..

I’m fine with Sandoval’s decision to play Winter ball in Venezuela instead of work out under the “Giant” eye in Arizona. At some point, this guy has to grow up and take care of himself. And money motivates a lot of people so I would be inclined to believe that he’ll come to camp in shape and have a good year in 2014. If he can’t responsibly take care of his body with millions of dollars at stake then he’ll never be able to do it.

And I don’t care what he does next year, he could hit .400 with 75 hr’s, I would not want him back. Let another team commit to him for several years only to watch him balloon up again.

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MVP results not a huge surprise. I nailed the exacta last August 18th:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2013/08/18/yasiel-puig-mvp-lol/

Anniversary time:

10 years today, Sabes pulled of the reverse-coup: The AJ Trade. Here’s a great recap of the trade at the Hardball Times.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/10th-anniversary-the-a.j.-pierzynski-trade/

I just read that the Giants are *open* to trading for starting pitching which is a little like me saying I’m open to the idea of buying a 5 million dollar house as long as the owner is willing to take 10K for it. We are simply not good trading partners. Our most desirable (only?) trade chips that would/could bring anything mlb ready/coveted are Panda, Belt, Romo and Crick. And while I would jizz in my pants if I hear that we traded Crick et al for David Price, I’m not holding my breath. Sabes don’t roll that way. Panda’s stock is low and trading Belt just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me unless someone sends us something of huge value and I just don’t think the market is that for Belt. Of course, I’d be happy to be proven wrong. And Romo, clearly a top 7 or 8 MLB closer, is still a closer and it’s rare that a top closer ends up getting traded.  I think most teams are of the opinion that you can plug a lot of guys into the closer role so why pay for it?

So I am not optimistic that a trade for a mlb ready starting pitcher is forthcoming—there are just too many other teams who have the same need who will pay more than we will.

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PET PEEVE–NON BASEBALL VARIETY: I am sick to death of football players using the excuse of “we just failed to execute” as the reason for losing. You mean you failed to execute those plays you ran in practice at half speed sometimes without contact? Shocking that it didn’t go down in the game like it went down in practice! Just call it like it is: you either got beat by a better team, or luck or a better game plan or better scheme. Those are the only reasons. “Failing to execute” is the puss-way out of answering a question from the press. And no one *pusses* his way out more often than our own Colin Kaepernick. Same with Harbs. As far as their interviews go, I’ve got no use for either of them……

But the Niners will be fine as soon as they find some legit NFL receivers. We don’t have a single guy who can consistently beat a cornerback 1:1 (especially deep). Our one long threat chance yesterday (a perfect throw from Kap that was dropped by *rookie*) went to a tight end. If sending the slow, white tight end deep is your deep threat, the rest of the receivers should just quit the game………

I’m not sure how many of you did the mlbtraderumors contest but here are my top 12 (there are 50 but I couldn’t snip all of them so I just went top 12):

I recognize there’s some redundancy with Tanaka and Garza going to the Art Dealers but this is a very difficult contest so any hit counts like gold. Last year’s winner got like 19 right (something like that).

#11 is more of a dream of mine than anything that will likely happen……

I admit to not understanding all the in’s and out’s of the posting fee and the exclusive rights to negotiate with a Japanese baseball player. But wouldn’t it make sense for the Giants to try to win the posting fee at the very least? Then if they can’t come to an agreement with Tanaka at least he doesn’t end up with the Art Dealers. It would be like putting in a claim for a player just to block him from going to another contender.

And I don’t want Tanaka, I think the risk is far too great for what the cost would be.

But I also don’t want to see him playing for Lower California.

Thoughts?

I still haven’t locked in my picks at mlbtraderumors.com for where I think their Top 50 free agents will land.  I was scanning the list just now and man, that’s an underwhelming list. Especially the top 10. I don’t find a player that I would truly want on the Giants (considering how much they will cost) until I hit Ubaldo at #11. After that I don’t see another name of interest until Nolasco at #20. Hart and #39 or McClouth at #41 wouldn’t have me doing a slow burn. I could see either, on the cheap, working out in the outfield for us.

Truth is, I can’t stand free agency. The players hired almost never match their production to what you are paying them. I still am blown away that 17 of the St Louis Cardinals in the World Series this year made under 600K. Of course, they lost so I guess all that tells me is that they had too many of those guys. Ha. Kidding, of course.

Anyway, here’s the list again:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/11/2014-top-50-free-agents-with-predictions-1.html

The bullying situation in Miami has to be an isolated incident, right? Or is this what goes on in other NFL locker rooms? You can argue that it’s too absurd to happen in other NFL locker rooms but everyone knows that Bounty-Gate wasn’t just about the Saints. That stuff happens in all locker rooms to this day.

Here’s an example of what this POS Incognito said to Martin in a voice mail:

And I don’t want to hear about this being football and it’s just hazing, and how NFL locker rooms are different than other work places. This is a fucking work place and Martin has to put up with this type of bullshit? No way. And all the dopes calling into KNBR saying he should have fought Incognito, even if he lost, to protect his reputation need to go back to prison where they came from. The rest of us will live in society……

The Dolphins had this cretin on a 6 player leadership committee. So either the Miami coach is totally clueless with no feel for the dynamics of his team or he’s a disgusting human who supported this type of behavior. Putting him on a leadership committee? 

And is there a bigger piece of shit pussy than a bully who calls out a guy half his weight in a twitter rant? Answer: there isn’t.

Here’s some past *weirdo* stuff tweeted out by Incognito about Martin:

http://extramustard.si.com/2013/11/04/richie-incognitos-twitter-history-with-jonathan-martin/

Anyway, “Meathead” doesn’t begin to describe this stupid fuck.

This contest is put on by mlbtraderumors.com and promises to pale in comparison to the one Twin put on. Anyway, it’ll kill some time if that’s what you’re looking for. The goal of the contest is to predict where their top 50 free agents will go. I think I got 12 correct last year. The winner got 20. It’s hard to do. And you have to have a facebook account.

Here’s the link:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014freeagentcontest

There are prizes, I don’t know what they are.

Breeder’s Cup Day. My favorite day of all the days. 9 races. Impossible to handicap. But quickly, for those interested, I will release my top longshot picks for each race. And by *longshot* I mean *the best value I could find to hit the tri or the super*. Any of them could win. Most will finish in the bottom rungs of the exotics. Or up the track. Hopefully not in a van. 🙂 🙂 🙂

4th: Ria Antonia and Concave

5th: Dank to win. Emmolient and Kittens Dumpling underneath. Maybe to win.

6th: Dance to Bristol. Great Hot for 3rd or 4th. Sweet Lulu just cause the ‘Dorf doesn’t run them “just because”

7th: Jeranimo. Dimension. One of the hardest races on the card, IMO

8th: another impossible race. New Year’s Day and Medal Count. There will be others.

9th: Magician. Hate Little Mike. This bold claim ensures him a winners circle appearance.

10th: Justin Philip, Gentlemen’s Bet, Fast Bullet, Laugh track

10th: Silentio and Bright Thought. Wise Dan is a beast though.

11th: Declaration of War. Will Take Charge. Paynter.

Of course, there will be a bevy of fine steeds surrounding all these great animals on all the tickets.

Good luck to you if you’re playing.