Juan Uribe, Off The Board!
I’m still trying to keep it real with relevant breaking news. Uribe has re-signed with the Art Dealers. At the time we sent this blog post to print, terms of the deal have not been disclosed. To me, at least. Maybe to Heyman, that fuck. He routinely scoops me…..
Uribe was probably never on the table for Sabes. For starters, Sabean has quit looking to improve the team. For most GM’s their work is never really done, they’re always trying to tweak and twist their roster into something better. Not for Sabes. He has his agenda, he signs his guys, fills out a roster and then he’s done with his “heavy lifting” as he likes to call it.
Uribe is probably still pissed at the Giants for leaking the lawsuit story filed against him by his former landlord. Remember that? He burned up his kitchen with a grease fire and then flew the coop. I think he settled out of court a year later. The Giants didn’t bother leaking that part of the story, did they?
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
More importantly, it looks like Loney is back with Tampa 😉
Good, low cost, re-signing by Tampa Bay. By the by, your maxim about pitching will definitely hold true for the Yankees James. Cashman, et. al., have more than 400 innings to fill or they will be up shit creek again (especially in that park). Beltran, Ellsbury, and McCann wont mean squat without a significant upgrade in their pitching.
Last, but not least, every expert I’ve read and listened to, seems to think that the Bums will trade for Price. I really hope that doesn’t happen.
Price with the Dodgers would be over the top gaudy. Hey, maybe they can still swing deals for Mike Trout and Miggy Cabrera, too!
Umm, perhaps – as long as they don’t talk about it, i.e., Yankees are being investigated by MLB for tampering (related to Trout).
A four year deal for Omar Infante would work for me. Super back-up this year, starting 2B next year, with Marco as the inf. bench guy.
Not certain you know this John – KC signed him to a $30 million/4 year deal.
I didn’t know that Steve. Fuck, I really wanted that guy. Arias, Arias, he’s our man…
Did we really want Juan Uribe again. Granted he did cut down his strikeouts last year and was more patient at the plate up he is getting up there in age.
Agree Celeste. I don’t see the fascination either. Dude gave the Dodgers two shitty seasons and one good one. Did the same for us, albeit, he was nails in the 2010 playoffs and World Series. Not certain, but I think Ewisco (Eric) or MacDog also brought this up yesterday or the day before.
Besides, I swear Uribe looks like our condo maintenance man (i.e,, I’ve never seen a short stop look so out of shape as Uribe appears to be. Maybe it’s just a weird body type). 😉
Strictly as a backup/spot starter, Celeste. He DOES provide pop off the bench. something we had very little of last year.
He does provide pop but we are down one versatile infielder. We have Arias off the bench and one more spot in the infield if we go with 6 infield and 5 outfielder. Just thinking that somebody younger could be in that reserve infield spot.
But Uribe is always a hero to me for how he destroyed the Frillies when I was at the ballet in 2010.
Has the Morse signing been compared to the Burrell signing? That’s how I see it, in the best case, as I said in an email to Dennis Z.
Nap time.
Back from snowy Old Forge and Inlet, NY.
Maybe Uribe would have helped keep Pablo in line, as in ” remember 2010 gordito, I’m taking your job if you don’t watch out.”
Seemed like good guy around clubhouse, not to be discounted. Ask Sox about Gomes, who brings more than just numbers.
True, he did take Pablo’s job in 2010. LOL.
Appropos of nothing, I’m shaking my head at this Mack Brown thing in Texas. He takes two weeks to announce he’s retiring, meanwhile he’s “recruiting” in Florida? If you’re a recruit that talked with Brown over the last 10 days, doesn’t that tell you that Texas is F’d up and not a place to go? Anyway, Brown screwed Cal out of the 2005 Rose Bowl, and begged and kissed asses to get his buddies in the AP Poll to vote Texas into the Rose Bowl over the best Cal team in the last 20 years that had been ranked ahead of Texas coming into the last game. So, good ‘ol Mack can take a high colonic and ride off into the sunset, I’ve got no tears for him at all…
I guess you can’t really head a Giants blog unless you constantly diss on their front office eh? Et tu oneflapdown? And this guy…http://www.thegiantscove.com/
OMG . . . Barely have recovered laughing from this line wswins, “After the disastrous pairing of Andres Torres and Gregor Blanco in left field in 2013 what the San Francisco Giants desperately needed in left was a run-producing power hitter who was at least an average defender. Even a large number of people in Iceland were aware of that.” Hilarious.
I don’t find hardly anything wrong with this guy’s analysis. Sounds a lot like mine. I wouldn’t call last year’s LF disastrous, but it pretty much sucked. I don’t see how anyone can look at last year’s result and find a lot good about the season, except maybe the last few weeks. And, the emergence of Belt as a hitter in the last half…
Regardless of whether you agree with him (I don’t), he does make good points. Equally important, he does it with humor. Read some of his other stuff snarrk, dude is a laugh riot a minute.
Speaking of laugh riots, good line Loo about Alfonso. 🙂
I think it all comes down to how much confidence you have in the front office after the 2 titles.
Or how much gratitude you might feel.
Or how much slack you’ll cut them.
Good points Loo. 50 years of (prior) futility has made me very grateful to this current front office.
I’ll never forget reading a scouting report on Alfonzo when he was with the Giants:
“There’s no life in his body”
Ha, come on. Find that, No scout wrote that.
Paragraph two – last line. OK it was an NL manager.
http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1032113/index.htm
Gratitude? Slack? COnfidence? Fuck all that. There’s a new world getting created and the Art Dealers are leading the way. Sabean is living off the past. The tv money that is coming down the pipeline is unprecedented. Guys are getting paid what they get paid. This isn’t a ZIto or Rowand issue. Sabean is scared off his ass hugging the base of the tree. “Heavy lifting?” Sabean has no fucking clue what’s going on right now……
To be honest you have been a bit negative on Sabean. Poor Sabes. Cry me a fucking river. What if he still has a trade up his sleeve and moves fatso errr Pablo?
Well, Craig, to be fair, Morse is a big guy… does that count as “heavy lifting”? :-p
Let’s all get real here. Morse is a friggin huge roll of the dice. If he craters, we got nearly zilch in LF in Blanco, except for defense. Nobody in the minors. We need more backup in the OF, Sabes cannot be done out there. If Pagan or Pence go down for any length of time, we are fucked…
Well I’m not overly impressed with moves other GMs have made either. Throwing millions at FA’s, moving some spare parts around, giving multi-yr deals to over 30 utility guys or avg pitchers. Can’t think of any great trades?
Seems to me it’s scarcity of avail talent out there, so it has to largely come from within your system. A Trout or Puig is not being moved. So lack of minor league talent is limiting the G’s again. Can’t plug the hole in LF or trade for help without ml ready prospects.
Last yr was painful as no one from Fresno or Richmond was much help. Hopefully that changes next year.
wswin, I thought you’d be in agreement R. Dwyer, who seems to support your view that an OFer with some offensive pop, but a really poor defender, will cost more runs than he produces.
Dwyer’s critique is a bit of a confused, logically inconsistent hodgepodge, obviously fueled by his disdain for Sabe’s lingering old skool ways. But he is generally right that the team as constructed right now is relying more on the good penny/ bad penny theory than it has to. Sabes has done just enough to satisfy himself that a playoff run seems plausible . . . if x, y, and z happen, and this and that work out . . . and, if they don’t, well, maybe some of those youngsters will be ready in 2015.
James…I admit I’m not enamored with the Morse signing. I would’ve preferred a more complete player. I also agree with Loo’s remarks about how much slack fans are willing to give.
I’m bummed. Billy Jack passed away. RIP Tom Laughlin.
Chris Cotillo of MLB Daily Dish reports that free agent left-hander Jonathan Sanchez has narrowed his list to three teams and has a few offers on the table. The 31-year-old reportedly had 7-8 teams show interest in his services. It would still be incredibly surprising to see him wind up with a major league deal, after posting a miserable 1-12 record, 8.73 ERA, 2.15 WHIP and 60/61 K/BB ratio over 78 1/3 innings the past two seasons.
As Salty said (by the by, some nice analysis lately Salty), “I’m not overly impressed with moves other GMs have made either.” MLB is looney toons when Sanchez is “narrowing” down his list of teams to select. 😉
Amen….
Thanks.
Where’s Wille D? I’m ready for some cogent thinking!
Cogent? Nip, ease up on spiking the Yuban. Take a walk and enjoy fresh air and sunshine, eh?
Sorry, but I think the Cove guy is FOS. The idea that you can find run producing power hitters for LF growing off trees these days is ridiculous. Sabes actually did sign one, Hunter Pence, who happened to be among the top FAs on the market at that time. Choo’d be great but he’s pretty expensive and still on the board.
The doomerous fool who wrote that is worried about Trumbo being the DBax springboard? The guy has 1 tool, 1. He can hit with power. Unfortunately, he can neither hit for avg., run throw or field any position besides 1b. He strikes out a ton, does not get OB, and cannot possibly hit behind Golds because no one would ever throw a ball within a foot of the plate to Golds with much easier pickings batting next. Giving up 3 players to get this guy is a helluva lot bigger gamble than Morse is, and way dumber. This obsession with RH pop is weird—don’t the Giants already have Pence and Posey in middle of the LU?
If you want to go back 8 yrs to cherry pick guys Sabes f-ed up on, you can do that with any GM in the biz. And of course our loony tunes guy ignores all the successful moves that brought in those 2 rings sitting here on the site. But stop blaming blanco and LF for everything–there were many culprits to 2013. And it’s over.
Great post, willie. Or maybe it just because I agree completely.
Awesome post, WillieD…and like John…probably because I agree.
The point about LF is not over, and I don’t know who’s blaming Blanco and LF for the team-wide face plant in 2013. But, LF is the position now that is the only one up in the air in terms of being filled with at least some level of competence. It hasn’t been solved by a long shot. We hope it has been semi-solved with Morse, apparently to be spelled by Blanco and maybe Perez, particularly late innings ala Pat the Bat. No team can solve every hole, sure that’s a given. But, saying it’s over is to ignore the open question that exists with the crew now penciled in out there in LF. If it’s over, then why post here, just wait until Spring for the daisies to bloom. Sabes has more work to do to shore up the bench…
WillieD—yes I’m coaching. I’m assisting both the boys JV and Varsity teams. The guy head coaching is another staff member who has coached a lot over the years, but hasn’t done basketball for a while. He is super knowledgable, but has a tendency to throw a lot at the kids real fast. I’m learning a lot and trying to clarify things for the guys who are lost–while sometimes being lost myself. Overall, having a lot of fun, but man does it make for some long days and hot dog dinners.
Let me know your thoughts on Read and React offense. Sounds like a good fit for our country kids who often have not played organized ball before high school.
….also, I appreciated yours (and Blades) takes on Rudy Gay and Derrick Willliams. Nice win for the Kings over the Rockets yesterday!
Here’s my take (in a very small nutshell) on 2013. I don’t think anyone felt at the beginning of the season the team wasn’t in a good position to defend the title. This game as Yogi once said is 90% mental and the other half…..It’s hard to know unless you’re in there the frame of mind in the clubhouse when your horse gets off to a bad start, your clutch 2b can’t grip the bat, or has back problems, you’re numbers 4 and 5 pitchers not to mention Timmy the 3 is highly inconsistent, Pablo being Pablo, Pagan going down, Affeldt also, Posey begins to try and do too much…I could go on and on…But I think that’s when Sabean said something like (Flavor thinks he surrendered) It probably isn’t our year…
I like this team. Barring the unforeseen, we’ll compete. I said it back in 2010, early May, check the archives, Ithought they would “get there”.
It’s not like the Giants don’t have any competition for the World Series every season. Fifty years of futility says that loud and clear; and moreover, 31 other clubs want the same thing as well. We could go back and forth about what we need until the cows come home, but the reality is that this is our Giants roster – with maybe 1 or 2 tweaks – for better or worse.
A couple of points a few Flappers have made that should be repeated: Salty said (yesterday I believe) something about very few mid-market clubs or even upper echelon clubs re-sign all their free agents. Who did we get rid of? Pence? Lincecum? Lopez? Only Zito was released. Who did we trade away? No one. I forgot the exact number, but the Giants have spent almost $170 million this season alone on contracts. Willie’s point about the paucity of finding left handed power hitters growing on the Giants money tree is also spot on. He also said something to the effect that you could cherry pick any MLB GM and find players they fucked up on. I’ll add this comment to his – did any of these GMs win 2 World Series? Uhh huh, I thought so . . . I also love what wswins said yesterday, about Caesar and “et tu Brute?” Now listen up, because this is important . . . there is no evidence that Caesar actually said these words, and the fame of the quotation is entirely due to its occurrence on William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. The quotation is widely used in Western culture to signify the utmost betrayal by an unexpected person, such as a friend. Let that last line sink in.
One last point – Does everyone recall how just about every Flapper reacted when the “Art Dealers” (love that term Flavor) started adding all that payroll from the Red Sox, Marlins, etc.? Let me remind you. WE WERE ALL LAUGHING AT THOSE SILLY ASSHOLES. Each and every Flapper, more or less said, “BRING IT ON. GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT!” What the fuck happened to our attitude?
Nevertheless, complain all you want. It’s your right and I will defend your freedom of speech as long as I breath. Me? I’m a Giants fan and I believe we are going to kick Dodger ass next season. Book it. 🙂
Well said, Steve, and I agree. I said something to the effect a few days ago (about everyone having a right to voice their opinion). And I can guarantee you that if you go back over the past couple of years, some of those who are ready to burn Sabes at the stake, were ready then to anoint him and make him a saint.
Could the team be better? Any team “could be” better. But overall, I am happy with the resigning of our vets, and the low risk/low cost gamble on Morse.
I think this team, if it remains healthy (and this is a caveat that applies to ALL TEAMS), will compete and has a good chance of getting back to the post-season.
TY Chi. Been a bit crazy here regarding Sabes IMO.
“31 other clubs”. Been away so long i completely lost track of the 30th and 31st organizations. Was there a two-league expansion i simply spaced out? Which were the lucky cities? Vegas and Montreal, maybe?
I commented over on that site before I saw it posted here, and yeah, he is full of shit. It’s pretty easy to gloss over the 2 championships while you point out the shitty moves Sabean made a decade ago. Alphonzo? Really? Horseshit. No talk of Huff and Burrell in 2010? Pagan and Scutaro in 2012? Right. Except for those pesky champiopnships, Sabean is out of touch.
I’m with Willie. All these GMs and owners throwing fuckloads of money to will-be has-beens is all well and good, but shit don’t matter. Boston did well by jettisoning their most onerous contracts last year. Sure they signed some names, but they didn’t go nuts like the Angels and Rangers (and the fart dealers) most recently did. All that sound and fury signifies squadoosh. The Giant have made some decent moves, and they are banking on their guys to return to their form.
A pipedream? Sure, maybe. But what’s the alternative? Bankroll the fucker into the ground? That caused the Boston implosion of 2012. It caused the Yanks to get old and creaky. Fuck it. Play the games.
The new paradigm? Fuck that. If the fart dealers are the new paradigm, then the Yankees would have a lot more hardware in recent years. In fact they SUCK because they lost touch (with the loss of Sabes, no less) with developing their farm system. Jeter, Rivera, et al, were the last era of homegrown talent. THEY took them to the WS. Not A Rod and the FA boys.
The ONLY reason the Dodgers caught fire last year was because of Puig. He put a charge into the team that carried them for a while.
However, that ship has sailed. This year, we’ll see how far they go with their collection of weirdos like Grienke, Puig, HanRam and Ethier. Ethier will likely continue to pout and tweak his way through games. Kemp is already on the DL for sleeping on his head wrong. HamRam is a powder keg waiting to pull a Milton Bradley and fly off into the ozone.
Fuck the Dodgers. They rode a hot streak into the playoffs, and summarily fell flat on their faces.
End of rant . . . 🙂
Geez. DIdn’t see your 11:30 post Blade . . . when the figers get flying, the rest goes out the window. . .
Well, no problemo . . . Loved your 1:01 and 1:05 posts, especially about Sabes being responsible for the Yankees farm system that produced the Jeter, Rivera championships (a point I have made a number of times as well).
FWIW, signing Alfonzo was a perfectly rational move by Sabes, with an unfortunate outcome. Alfonzo had played in a home park that was not particularly friendly to hitters, he was only 29, and coming off of a good year.
Sabes could have dramatically reshaped the starting staff without going on an irresponsible, unreasoned spending spree. He didn’t fully address what was clearly and by far the team’s biggest failing last year, and the gamble here is more uncertain than it should have been, IMO.
‘Clearly and by far’ to you. All I’m saying is there’s still a lot of time between now and April.
I don;t see a lot more activity, but I do think there will be more activity to shore up the pen, and look for bench help.
Well, also according to the statistics, which make a pretty strong case that we had among the shittiest pitching in all of baseball.
I think the difference between the artless dodgers and our SF Giants last year was mainly the bench. Losing Kemp but having a Puig in the wings was huge for LA. When Panda went down we get Arias, Marco goes down we get 100 pounds of nothing, Pagan and it’s a different Torres and the same Blanco. And, then the pitching. If Pagan would have stayed healthy it would have been our same 2012 OF after Melky got pee on his hands. Adding Morse adds some depth and power, if/when he goes down, we’re back to our OF that won the 2012 World Series. Cain is a horse and will be back, pitching like one. Tim figured out he needs to study batters and he’s learning how to pitch(not throw). Huddy the huckster will be the Clearasil and if Vogs get more blow jobs will be fine in the number five.
More bench depth, that’s not named Pill or Blanco Jr, and I think we’ll be just fine until Sabes tweaks it for the Playoff run.
WIth a full season from Sanchez and Abreu then throwing in Arias, Blanco and Possibly Perez the bench is already stronger then last year. I’m really hoping to not see or hear about Pill going into the season.
Good point. I’m actually excited about Perez having another season under his belt and am wondering if he would be the silver lining should Morse go down. Kid can play some defense and I think he can hit as well.
Yeah, there is some good speed on the bench right now. I like Abreu. I would rather he stays in a bench role but he gives some good pop and insurance for any injury to Scutaro. I was sort of surprised to see Peguero leave. I would have rather seen him than Pill.
Man, this place is tolerating dissent like a North Korean dictator lately.
Here’s an interesting article on whether or not Maddux is the first unanimous HOF selection. I found it interesting.
http://mlb.si.com/2013/12/16/jaws-and-the-2014-hall-of-fame-ballot-greg-maddux/
Major bullpen upgrade for the Snakes . . . The White Sox acquired third baseman Matt Davidson from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for closer Addison Reed. Reed, 24, recorded 40 saves for the White Sox this past season, fifth-most in the American League and tied for fourth in franchise history. He had a 3.79 ERA with 72 strikeouts over 68 relief appearances. Over three seasons with the White Sox, the former third-round draft pick had 69 saves and 138 strikeouts over 136 appearances with a 4.17 ERA. Dude can flat out pitch. I’ve had him on a couple of FL teams and he rarely blows a save.
you sure about this one?
Yes. Davidson is a phenom (about 60-75 ranking of top minor league players). Normally, I would say this was an idiotic move giving away pitching, but the White Sox convert their closer into something valuable before he himself becomes expensive through the arbitration process, which Addision will go through next season (or the one afterwards?).
Since I obviously can’t compete on baseball acumen (I am SURPRISINGLY NOT, repeat NOT, a doomer on our 2014 Giants), I want to comment on Peter O’Toole. I’ve been rather obsessively reading obits on him: NY Times, LA Times (excellent), The Guardian (the best on his hellraising), WashPost. As The Guardian said, not much to be sad about in that he lived life to the full. O’Toole, who always considered himself Irish (though it is unclear by his own admission if he was born in Connemarra) and wore green socks even with a tuxedo, said something like, I don’t regret one drop of alcohol I ever drank, and if if I can’t enjoy my life now I should go back on the bottle. He lamented that he sort of BECAME T.E. Lawrence. Anyway, no one like him. Last of a breed, save maybe Michael Caine or Alan Bates or a few others. Incidentally, he studied Bedouin culture, learned Arabic, and learned how to ride a camel for “Lawrence.” PLUS, he and Omar Sharif gambled and pissed away their earnings on trips to Beirut. Lived hard, worked hard, played hard. p.s. He and his cronies were once asked by a pub owner to leave because it was closing time. Feck that, they said. They wrote a check and bought the bar…and became lifelong friends with the [former] owner.
great obit yourself on the guy. I’m too young to barely even know who he is. I also don’t watch too many movies. Anyway, there’s a new thread you should re-post this there. Might bring Twin out of his hibernation.
Watch Lawrence of Arabia. It’s like watching every movie ever made all at once. It’s what, 5 hours long?