A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Got a lot to do today as I get ready for Pitbull’s New Year’s Revolution. With another year in the books, another championship year, it’s time to say goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015…..

49 days till pitchers and catchers report. FYI: That’s also the same number of wins Jim Harbaugh had in SF.

Today is the 47 year anniversary of the Ice Bowl.

And that’s all I’ve got. And in case you missed the joke, I’m not really getting ready for Pitbull’s New Year’s Revolution. I think Pitbull’s an idiot.

How ever you choose to ring in the new year, enjoy yourself and don’t forget to take a moment to toast *3in5*—a reign that we might never seen again……

Now, I need to get back to scouring the internet for the next 2 weeks of BBOTD’s…. Muhuhuhahahaha!!!!!!!!

I really want your guys opinion on this because I think Bob Fitzgerald might be an idiot. A KNBR caller just threw out the following “Would you rather?” and Fitz basically thought it was too tough to call.

The caller said “Would you rather have the Bonds era or the World Series era?” Fitz went on and on about being a “regular season” guy and he leaned towards the Bonds era since he thought not only did you get the highs that Bonds brought the fans but he also felt like there were some teams (he noted ’93) that were significantly better than any of the 3 WS teams.

First of all, it doesn’t surprise me that Fitz is all about the regular season. He’s been broadcasting the Dub for 15 years and has never experienced what it’s like to win it all. So with the Warriors dominating this current regular season, this is his time to bask. In fact, this is the one and only time he’s had to bask. But still, he should know better.

I am all about Barry Bonds, he’s one of my favorite players of all time. But now that I have some perspective gifted to me by the “3in5 teams” there is no way I would trade the WS era for the Bonds era. NO FREAKING WAY. Not in a million years and it’s not even close (as it was for the pondering Fitz).

Thoughts? I would slap up a poll but I don’t think WordPress allows for that feature anymore. At least, I can’t find it anymore.

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Also, regarding Harbaugh, I am 100% done with *Harbs talk*. Stop. He’s gone. The Bay Area media needs to move on. It’s like we’ve never had a coach leave before.

Shrouded in the darkness and cold of a post-Christmas/pre-New Year morning…..Juan Gutierrez has been resigned to a minor league deal. Not sure, but I think we’ve reached the bottom of the news barrel. And we all know what that means. It’s haiku time…

This one was written by Giants fan Steve Hermanos. It’s about Country Legend

Your expanding pants

Now accommodating balls

Big as tractor wheels

I forget when this started making the rounds on KNBR.I think it was mid October…..

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Unca C here . . .

Found this restaurant 2 blocks from my office in the financial district . . .

I left the house early this morning to hit the gym—it was dark and cold. Heavy fog. I was like a *ghost into the fog*. Thank you, Counting Crows. Anyway, KNBR was re-playing the wild card game in Pittsburgh. The atrocious weather said it was not a good day for a baseball game. But it took all of one batter for me to get right back into it. Crawford had already hit his grand slam and Krukow was talking about Bumgarner “gaining confidence.” It was an odd thing to hear him say knowing the greatness that would unfold later.

KNBR is re-playing the entire post season starting now and running till the end of Christmas day. You out-of-towners should check to see if they’re also streaming it online. I’m going to have it on in the background whenever possible. I hadn’t realized how much I didn’t remember about that wild card game. I mean, I remember the Craw grand slam and….that’s about it. If pressed, I could recall Bum pitched the game, but I remember very few details. For instance, on my way back from the gym it was the 8th inning. The Giants were up 8-0. I was surprised to hear two straight runners got on because of back2back errors by Craw and Arias. No matter to Bumgarner who promptly struck out Jody Mercer and got MVP McCutchen to ground out meekly to shortstop.

I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the post season games called by the home town broadcast team who always disappears come playoff time getting replaced by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman or whoever the fuck his broadcast partner is now. 🙂

It’s Christmas Eve and I am appreciating two things: 1) what I have and 2) memories of my life. Last night, one of our Flap friends *Denniszud* revealed some personal information that made me feel some of the pain he must be going through, especially at this time of year. Dennis, hang in there. Two flap up salute to you and Flap Nation has your back. I hope you know that.

Merry Christmas everyone….from the Flap Photo Bucket: denniszud in his best 1-flap down pose. lqtm

I’m ripping this off from the Merc but I think it’s too good to go unnoticed here if there are some Flappers who don’t read the Merc. They did a story on Jake Peavy, who bought a freaking real life cable car for his home in Alabama, and he disclosed this moment between him and Bum before Game 7:

“What Madison did (in Game 7), we’ve heard it time and time again, but I don’t even really have words to describe what he did in that stage and the moment he was in,” Peavy said. “I recall being in the outfield with Madison and talking about Jon Lester and him just wanting to be great. You’ve got to want to be great. You’ve got to have talent and ability but you’ve got to want to be great, and Madison has that.”

Peavy realized that when he was in the outfield with Bumgarner before Game 7.

“I guess I can probably say this now with it not sounding cocky or arrogant for Madison,” Peavy said. “I was sitting in the outfield with Madison and he was asking me how I thought the game was going to play out and he said, ‘If Huddy can get the ball to me, I can get it to Romo.’ I said to him, I said, ‘Madison, when you get the ball you’re not coming out of the game, pal. You’re the best guy we’ve got.’ And he goes, ‘Man, that’s exactly what I hoped you would say.’

“That’s exactly what he wanted. He just needed some confirmation and someone to believe in him as well. I told him: ‘You fight, big man. I think America would want to see you fight.’ What he did, it’s going to go down as the best ever.”

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Just wild, awesome stuff. I’m so thankful for Peavy, Bumgarner, all of them. Our team is at the top once again and the haters can only stare at the ground, muttering to themselves, locked into a slow burn….

Just watch this. It’s so epic.

Honestly, my favorite moment of the vid is Rowand’s 2nd fist pump to the music at 5:09. That shit just got real. And who remembers who the 1st baseman was who caught the last out of the 2010 NLDS? I didn’t.

Wow. I declare December 19th, 2014 to be the most active December 19th The Flap has ever seen. A lot went down yesterday/last night. Let me try to re-cap.

1) The Giants got Casey McGehee. I’m all over this move. And the only way you aren’t all over this move too is if a) you were clamoring for Arias or Duvall to man third base next year or b) you have been championing the arrival of Kendry Flores and/or Luis Castillo to the big league level.

Since neither a nor b has occurred, ever, I trust that all of us are supportive of this pick up. True, CM doesn’t have a lot of power and his BABIP was high in the first half of last season contributing to an unsustainable batting average. He also has one too many e’s in his last name. But I’m moving past that or at least in process of doing so. 🙂

According to fangraphs.com he had a 2.0 WAR in 2014 and that’s fine. The Panda had a 3.0 WAR. He also had a better batting average and OBP than Sandoval. I’m not trying to suggest I’d rather have McGehee > Panda. But that food truck has left the yard. He’s a local kid who worked his ass off to get back to the big leagues (spent a year in Japan) and considering what our corner bag options were I will take Casey McGehee and appreciate Sabean for going 3 for 3 so far this off season (I support the Romo and Peavy deals, too).

2) Now, to the more interesting thread within last night’s thread. The manical brain of DJ Loo decided to go old school Flap triva on us and see if anyone recalled the blogger known as Cal_Stim25. That sent several of us into a dizzying journey deep into the annals of our foggy yesteryear. I actually didn’t try to google it because I thought he had posted on “Flap 1.0” which is the blogger.com blog I started. Everything from blogger.com is dead/not accessible. Apparently James found some posts from him in 2010 which means he did post on this blog, or Flap 2.0. You can access any post made at this blog by clicking on the “Archives” to the right. You can also do it by punching the correct words into google. If you use the “search” feature to the right you can only search words used in main threads that I (or a stable boy) have written…..

The clues given by Loo were fantastic and the guesses from the Flappers *playing* were impressive. In the end, James won a prize that, fittingly, doesn’t exist yet. But fear not James, Loo is as legit as anyone when it comes to delivering gifts….

3) Regarding the Scott McClain bat that Twin gave me 5 or 6 years ago. I have been trying to coordinate with Snarkk for about a year to give him the bat because I know he would think it’s cool and I’ve enjoyed it long enough. We’ve come close a couple of times but it hasn’t happened yet. I tried finding a package to send it to him. Every time I walk into a UPS or a Western Union I look around casually for one. I have never found one. Giving it to him in person has been tough as we’ve most recently only gone to Giants games together and, shockingly, you aren’t allowed to bring a bat into a baseball game at AT&T Park. lqtm.

Currently the bat is in my office at work and I would say at least 75% of the people who enter pick the bat up and either explore it if it’s the first time they’ve seen it or hold on to it while we talk. It’s morphed into the center piece of my office. I usually keep it propped up against a wall or it just gets left on the couch. But I will pass it on to Snarkk when the right time presents itself.

Whew. Long thread (for December). Long re-cap (but fitting). Very cool December 19th, 2014 for us and probably no one else in the world.

Cal_Stim25, whatever keg party you are at today, we salute you…..

Pretty wild stuff coming out of San Diego. Not only did they add Kemp and Myers but they’ve also added Justin Upton and Derek Norris and reportedly are about to acquire Will Middlebrooks (part of ‘Kat just died a little bit).

The Giants, on the other hand have brought back Romo and Peavy. I like both moves.

Still, time is ticking and 2015 is starting to feel like 2014 without the post season.

But maybe that’s just the gray day talking…..

All I want for Christmas is an outfielder, a Max Sherzer and a 3rd baseman. In that order. We absolutely need a competent, major league outfielder. Not a platoon guy or someone converted to outfield. A legit outfielder. I don’t know who that is going to be but if the Padres can get creative enough to trade for Wil Myers AND Matt Kemp then I have to believe that Sabes has it in him to bring in a real outfielder in 2015. Blanco is going to need to play CF when Pagan hits the DL and when Pagan is playing we need a LF that isn’t Blanco who we know can’t play a full season at any position. I love Blanco, for all the same reasons you guys do. But we need an outfielder, badly.

Next, I want Sabean to sign Sherzer to a 6 year/150 million deal. I think it’s possible to get him for this *bargain price* with so many big market teams dropping out on him.

Thirdly, for 3rd, I want the Giants to trade a box of cigars for David Freese. Not only are cigars on the cheap now but Freese can perform at replacement level for the year and not make me wonder how Adam Duvall would do at the position.

How do you guys rank those 3 obvious needs?

Just killing time, but I thought we could kick around the “Justin Upton trade thing” making the rounds right now. I call it a *thing* and not a *rumor* because I don’t think the Giants would ever in a million years put together the right trade package that it would take to get J-Up.

There are at least 2 main reasons that he wouldn’t want to come to SF.

#1: His tweet from 3 years ago is fairly indicative of his feelings:

#2: He wouldn’t get to play with his brother anymore. Speaking of that, BJ Upton is one of the worst hitters in either league. Why would Atlanta trade Justin and keep The Human Swing Through? If anything, I’d take them both just to keep Justin’s spirits up. BJ could be Justin’s butler. He could drive him around to different strip joints. I dunno. And you’d think Atlanta would be happy to get rid of BJ who literally looks like he can’t see the ball when he swings. Check it out sometime, it’s pretty hilarious.

Someone should show J-Up how his 29 homeruns would have done at AT&T Park last year:

Regardless, it would be unbelievably risky for the Giants to package up 2-3 players (and it would be at least Crick and Panic) for a guy in his walk-year who, for all we know, doesn’t like SF for reasons other than the ball traveling like crap here. You would think he’d care about winning a championship but as this free agent season has shown us, ballplayers don’t seem too worried about winning. They just take the fattest dollar offer that gets put in front of them.

He doesn’t have a no-trade clause so if we traded for him he would have to play here. With what attitude, I don’t know…..

When Jed Lowrie gets 24 million dollars it’s time to take a step back and just let all the madness unfold. I think I would prefer the Giants going out and unearthing Brian Bocock from wherever he might be. Convert him to 3rd base. At least we’d have a solid glove over there. Not to mention we could fire up all the *bigcock* jokes the blog could handle…..

I just can’t support multi-year deals for players who I don’t really want anyway just to fill a hole we have for one year. And please God NO Asdrubal Cabrera.

If the Giants plugged Adam Duvall in at 3rd and The White Shark into LF and signed Max Sherzer would you guys feel confident about heading into 2015? And before everyone freaks out at such prospects don’t forget that the Giants won their last 2 World Series’ with Blanco playing regularly.

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And so long to this guy. Short stay, good Giant

Why would any player who has market value accept a qualifying offer? Ten of the 12 have already signed big deals and the 2 guys who haven’t signed yet are named Sherzer and Shields.

I don’t even really understand why a team makes a qualifying offer if they know it’s going to be rejected. Draft picks are no longer given to the teams who give qualifying offers and lose the player to another team. Or maybe they are to team who lose a player who played the entire season with them? I’m unclear on the rules, if anyone has a good link I’d appreciate it.

Either way, since they always get rejected and the player always goes on to sign a giant multi-year deal with someone else, it all seems like a waste of time to me…..

Now that Melky is off the table, let’s look at the remaining top free agents. Do you see any of them wearing our uniform next year?

Max Sherzer

James Shields

Chase Headley

Colby Rasmus

Jed Lowrie

Asdrubal Cabrera

Jake Peavy

Mike Morse

While I haven’t been too concerned about not getting a piece of this year’s free agent crop at some point we do need to fill some holes. One of these guys has to be an SF Giant next year, right?

I read this morning that Brandon Morrow has 6 offers on the table. I started hoping the Giants were one of the 6. I’ve always liked Morrow, even back when he was a Cal Bear. Electric stuff. But like most guys who throw too hard he can’t stay healthy. Still, I’ve wanted him on our team for years.

And then I re-thought it. Why would Sabean take a chance on a guy with his injury history. He wouldn’t. If he breaks down in June it’s just another huge hole to fill in the middle of the season. The Giants almost never have a starting pitcher break down in the middle of the season. There was Cain and that’s about all I can remember without my coffee yet.

So while I’d love to see Morrow on a make-good 1 year MLB deal I don’t see how that would come to pass. Again, Morrow is the type of guy a *0in5* team takes a flier on…..

James Shields is the next FA on the Giants radar and I genuinely hope they don’t get him. They aren’t going to get him, he’s got like 6 teams going after him. And when we he doesn’t sign with SF I will breath a sigh of relief. A guy like Shields is someone a *0in5* team takes a chance on. It would satiate the hungry fan base (for a short time).

Shields is going to have close to 2000 innings on his arm after next season. Do you really want a guy like that for 6 more years? He’s not dominant, he’d spend what is likely one of his last healthy seasons learning the NL (remember when Zito used that excuse?) and the bottom line is that we don’t want to deal with this guy….

That cliche “the best deal is the one you don’t make” is being overused but I think it’s an appropriate description so far for our off season. I’m not bummed about a single one of these guys we haven’t signed (including the Panda).

Just a very cool picture from last night. Bum is operating on a whole different social level these days. And he’s apparently using hair product now which I find hilarious on a lqtm-level…..

Preliminary feelings after finding out we lost out on Loser. Er, Lester….

Bobby Evans needs to tighten up his comments to the public. Telling us that Lester “didn’t give us a rose” was just about the lamest, limpest thing I’ve ever heard come out of SF Giants management PR.

Speaking of roses, I think we’re gonna come out smelling like one. No Lester, especially if he goes to the Cubs (#deadgiveaway), is going to be something we appreciate as the years go on and we go 4in6 or 4in7 or 5in…you get the point……

What I do not get is why we keep coming in 2nd place on these free agents. Maybe before 3in5 I could see the reasons. But I don’t get why players don’t want to come into this windfall win factory.

Whatever, I stopped trying to keep up with Sabean a long time ago. He’ll do what’s right. He almost always does……

And am I the only one who’s beyond impatient on what the 2014 ring is going to look like? I swear to God I think about that multiple times a day. #ringfetish

The Oakland A’s infield next season could very well be Ike Freaking Davis, Joey Wendel, Marcus Semien and Brett Lawie. I can’t even comprehend what Beane’s mindset is. The dude has had his run of success but that doesn’t mean it will always be that way. If you were even considering being a season ticket holder with the A’s why would you pay for this nonsense?

#3in5

Niner talk time. I haven’t seen my Niner friends this pissed off about anything, ever, lol. I don’t think it’s Kaep and the dumbass squigley line his has shaven into his head. I don’t think it’s his petulant press interviews. I don’t even think it’s about how bad he and the team play. I don’t think it’s about Harbaugh or the OC or even all these losses. I think Niner fans just got so worked up and excited about recapturing the glory days, combined with coming so close over the last few years, that it’s just hard to watch it all come crashing down so quickly….without a Super Bowl.

Again, the Giants have gifted up something over the last 5 years that we should never, ever take for granted. It’s once in a lifetime stuff.

But that’s something you guys already new.

Now, back to Niner bashing…….

Football all day today, but I did have a quick SF Giants thought: I was happy to hear that the Giants are not in on Headley “at the 65 million dollar level.” If we signed Headley it would remind me of the Edgardo Alfonso signing back in ’03–with significantly more dough tied into it.

Niners/Raiders today. Winner will celebrate not being a piece of shit.

The Baseball Winter Meetings are approaching and I can’t imagine a more underwhelming event for Giants fans. Sabean doesn’t do his work at the Winter Meetings. And with San Diego falling out of the top 10 in “Cities with the Best Strip Clubs” it could make for a glum week for our leader. It’s close enough to Mexico for him to make a party of it but I’m not expecting much.

Do you see the Giants doing anything at the Winter Meetings this year?

I had a thought coming into work this morning. I can never again question anything Brian Sabean does. While I was one of the only Flappers to support the acquisition of Jake Peavy on the day of the trade….

…..I never envisioned that Giants team capable of even getting to the playoffs (much less winning another World Series).

In fact, just a day or so after the Peavy trade I penned these now famous words uttered by my elder statesman:

At that time, the Dodger trolls were out in force and even Flap Universe was predicting a sad sunset on our season.

Naturally, we won the World Series. And it all started with Brian Sabean. Well, you could make an argument that it all started with Dan Uggla sucking so badly that Sabes was forced into calling up a second baseman who he publicly discredited prior to the call up.

But whatever, that’s quibbling with genius. And since most of us don’t understand true genius, we don’t understand Brian Sabean. And the bottom line is that he knows more than we do. The proof is “3 in 5”. For Giants fans, that’s rad. For Giants blogs, not so much…..

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Just a random screen shot of 2 unknown Giants fans hoopin’ and hollerin’ it up after Ishikawa’s bomb

I started kicking this around last night and this morning decided to list off as many reasons as I could think of for why a player would want to come to play in San Francisco. We’ve been conditioned to think that hitters are generally repelled by the idea of playing at AT&T but if after reading the list, wouldn’t pretty much ANY player want to come to SF?

1) 3 in 5. The obvious one. If you want to win, this is the place to be.

2) you get to play in maybe the best ball park in the league in front of a packed house every night.

3) no matter how bad you play the press will leave you alone.

4) team chemistry– by all accounts, it’s a fun clubhouse to be in

5) you play for the best manager in baseball. In addition, the coaches are all considered to be outstanding as well as “players coaches.”

6) San Francisco is a great city. Go back and look at Bryce Harper’s tweets after spending a few days here. If a douchbag like him can appreciate The City, anyone can.

7) no humidity and very few rain delays or rain outs

8) After winning a World Series, and you are a free agent,  Sabean will likely shower you with a more lucrative contract than anyone else. After the Panda left I now can only use the word “likely”.

9) you walk right into one of the great rivalries in sports

The Cons List?

I dunno, maybe a liberally area like this might not be your scene.

That’s all the cons I could come up with.

thoughts? What am I missing?

…but this time he’s on our side of the bay.

He’s here to meet with Brian Sabean. There are confirmed reports that Sabes will have multiple barf bags at the ready when Lester tells him how much $$$ he wants.

The Cubs have already offered this dude 135 million so I’m not sure what the point of this meeting is.

Maybe Lester is just in the mood for some sick clam chowder? How do they get it to not soak through the sourdough bread bowl? It’s Wicca or magic or something……