A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

This is the last back2back thread about comparing pre-2010 swag to post 2010 swag, I promise. On the right is a shirt I bought probably 15 years ago. No frills. Black. Name of team. Done. On the left is a shirt someone gave me for Christmas. Honestly, I wear the one on the right much more often.

Regarding spring training, I think it’s clear from the last 2 threads that there ain’t much coming out of camp so far……

This is the coffee cup I drink from every morning:

I was looking at it this morning trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. Then I figured it out and took this picture.

1958 to 2008 (and 2009) were just so freaking worthless. Sure we had our memories of all the games and the players. We had the heartbreaks, the highs the lows. The close calls. But we never had that SOARING supernova high that 2010, 2012 and 2014 brought us. Will Clark hitting that grand slam deep into the Chicago night was probably my best memory from “the coffee cup” years. Now think about the rush of the last 5 years. And then look at my coffee cup. It’s almost too overwhelming to consider. Did the last 5 years really happen?

After realizing why I don’t like this cup my first reaction was to go buy a new one—-bigger, with gaudy championship shit written all over it. But no, this is the cup I will continue to drink from in the morning. A boring, quiet reminder of what we once were. A *bridge* to what we are today…..

So as soon as I say Aoki leading off is “not going to happen,” Bruce Bochy tells reporters that he’s considering exactly that. This is very good news.

Aoki, Panik, Pence, Posey, Belt, Pagan, McGehee, Crawdaddy, Pitcher.

You guy see it another way?

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NBA time: Only two games on the slate (typical Thursday) but what a slate it is. Westbrook going 1:5 v Phoenix is interesting but the real deal is Golden State v Cleveland. If The Dubs want more info on how legit they are a road game vs LeBron, Love etc. The match ups in this game are endless. I can’t wait to see Draymond on James who takes every point scored on him as a personal affront to his family. And Curry should fiddle-de-do all over Irving’s face. Wild card could be Bogut’s ball movement and whether Klay is hitting his shots.

Regardless, WOWZA, what a game coming up tonight….

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So is this another “bad angle” or do the Red Sox already hate The Panda?

Yes, he had back surgery, but the procedure wasn’t career threatening. Still, he’s 33 years old and plays like he’s 23. He could easily break again.

Nori Aoki waits in the wings to leadoff if Pagan gets hurt again. It’s not going to happen, but I’d lead Aoki off to start the season. He’s a better leadoff hitter than Pagan who, at this point in his career, might be better off hitting down the line up anyway. And there’s probably a slightly less chance of injury if Pagan doesn’t feel like he’s got to fly around the bases every time up. Hit the ball in the gap, score Aoki, jog to first base. That sounds about Pagan’s speed these days……

I found the Giants non-pursuit of Yoan Moncada rather amusing. Did anyone really think we were in on this guy? Sabean said, “We were involved, just not as much as other teams.” The bottom line is that Sabean will never pay market value for a hot prospect from Cuba. I don’t know if he’s skittish from the Ozzie Fernandez thing or if he just doesn’t know how to compete. Maybe ownership won’t let him. But the freaking Brewers made an offer in the 12-15 million dollar range and if Sabean wasn’t as involved as THAT then of course he never had a shot.

I don’t really care, I don’t find myself pining away for 2nd basemen from Cuba, especially with Joe Panik on the team. And Moncada is only 19 (though more likely 22).

I just get tired of Sabean spoon feeding us nonsense. Just tell the fans you aren’t ever going to sign a player from Cuba unless there is zero competition and he costs under 2 mil. Like when you signed Daniel Carbonell (who no one else mistook for a hot prospect).

This is and always will be one of the greatest pictures I’ve ever seen.

I’ve looked at this for probably hours over the course of time that’s passed since it was taken. The four fans to the left with the most perfect expressions. The weird kid behind Pence’s ass. And until tonight I never noticed the light above Pence’s head. Check it out— Guy with a beard, tongue sticking out. How crazy is that?

Missing baseball tonight…….

Different angle . . .
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Pic of the Day

As many of you have heard, Tim Lincecum reunited with his dad over the winter and revamped his delivery. It pains me to wonder why it took him so long to go freaking TALK TO HIS DAD to get this fixed. Since we don’t know if it’s fixed I won’t worry too much about it.

But come on, TALK TO YOUR DAD? I get it, Chris Lincecum is a dick. I remember his radio show. He’s intense. He’s a “know it all.” I wouldn’t choose to hang out with him either. But if he has the key that will unlock the funk you’ve been in for years, then I’m sorry you go put your head down and TALK TO YOUR DAD.  Look, if Tim went through some kind of major trauma with his dad (physical/sexual abuse) then I could understand why he would cut his dad out of his life. But I don’t think that happened. And if it did, why would he reunite now? Conspiracy theory on that at the end of the post……

Here’s what happened: Tim started making bank and figured he didn’t have to listen to his blowhard dad anymore because he’s an adult and he makes 500 times in a year what his dad made in a lifetime. Still, if this is the guy with the keys to the castle, how could it take so long to go back to him?

If, and it’s a BIG IF, Tim’s dad has tinkered his son back into relevance than I will start by being ecstatic.

And then I will be pissed off.

When was the last time Tim was good? 2011? In 2012 he made 18 million. In 2013 he pocketed 22 million. Last year he cleared 17 million. And this year, in the final year of his deal I might add, he will make 18 million. Not only did he owe it to himself to go TALK TO HIS DAD sooner than this winter but he owed it to his employer and his adoring fans. If he just patched up the relationship with his dad so he could gear up for another big contract as a free agent, fucking off for the last 3 full seasons while being paid handsomely, then both of them can go fuck themselves……

Well, this spring training could be going better. First, Romo gets shut down with a sore shoulder. Now, Bruce Bochy has a heart procedure and is resting in the hospital. Don’t even get me started on the freaking ice rink that’s taken over the floor of Levi’s Stadium.

Sounds like Boch is ok but obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with him.

Pitchers and catchers report today. Does that do anything 4 ya? The day feels the same to me. Maybe once we start seeing some pics come out of camp, stories that rise (and fall).

You know what’s awesome? This guy is awesome. Zummie striking the pose.

How about the life that Barry Zito leads? He takes a year off to surf and bang his hot wife and then decides he wants to play in the major leagues again. The A’s gave him a minor league deal for a $1m should he make the club with additional incentives built in.

What a brilliant move by Zito. He goes back to the club and fans who have nothing but love for him. And they know him so it won’t be a big deal when his breaking balls don’t break in the thin, dry Arizona air. I’m sure they’ll just look at his velocity, which should be there after taking a year off, and happily welcome him to the staff.

And make no mistake about it, the A’s need a veteran starting pitcher to lead that staff—they have Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir and a bunch of kids. Zito’s experience will go a long way to helping them.

And the best part about it is that I can root for him from a distance. Free from having to worry about his albatross contract and frequent blow up starts, I have nothing but well wishes for a player who is directly responsible, along with several others, for us taking down the 2012 crown. Don’t ever forget what Zito did for us in that post season. I never will.

How rad will it be if Zito pitches against the Giants in Spring Training?

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and for those of you following the Panda on his first day, here he is….Yikes. The core workouts must have been few and far between this Winter….

Our Cardinals friend, Daniel Shoptaw, has me do a Q/A with him each February called “Playing Pepper”. I think he has several other Giants blog owners do this. With so little happening in our baseball world, I am choosing to make it a thread today.

Question: What are your thoughts on the team’s off season? Did they do what they needed to do?

Answer: They replaced Pablo and Morse with McGehee and Aoki. That’s a big minus-minus. They resigned starting pitchers who have a questionable amount of productive innings left in their arms. But we’ve won 3 of the last 5 world series’ with teams that didn’t look so good on paper. As the great Flap veteran DJ Loo once said, “Sabean’s off season doesn’t end until the trade deadline.”

Question: What does this team do so well in the post season when they get there?

Answer: They act like they’ve been there and because they have been there they have a different mindset than other teams. They don’t freak out and throw shit around when things don’t go there way (see: 2014 Washington Nationals). They don’t get too high or too low….until the job is done and it’s time to celebrate. When you know you’re going to win it’s a fairly huge advantage over your competitors. And no one out-manages Bruce Bochy in the post season.

Question: What’s the weakness of the team?

Answer: the regular season? Kidding. People think the Giants “got lucky” again in 2014 but remember, they were 42-21 to start the season. You don’t get that record by accident. They have gotten weaker offensively but they’ve maintained most of the core of both the position players and the pitching staff. If they stay healthy, I don’t see any holes that can’t be overcome once Sabean ends his vacation shortly before the 2015 trade deadline…

Question: What player do you expect to make the greatest strides this year?

Answer: I mean, they just won yet another world series with most of the same guys from the one they won before this one. I’m not sure there are too many more strides to take. Brandon Belt is the obvious choice, should be remain healthy…..

Question: What’s your projection for their record in 2015 and where will they finish in the NL West?

Answer: Probably another 88 wins or so, 6 games back of the Dodgers. And another world series win from the wild card slot.

Question: What do you like best about being a Giants fan?

Answer: the knowing dude head nods I get to partake in with strangers on the street on a daily basis. Through association, we are world champions, multiple times over the last 5 seasons. We don’t take it for granted. But we’ll ride this supernova till it burns out. The trophies, however, will never fade away….

I promise, this will  be the last golf post of the year. It is really amazing what Matt Cain and Buster Posey are doing down at Pebble this week. They’re still tied, but that’s not even the half of it. First of all, they are very different golfers. Cain is a 6 and Posey is a 14. And, of course, they are paired with different pros (Posey with Watney–my pre-match predicted winner and Cain with Bettencourt).

And yet they have posted the exact same adjusted score each day: 61—66—63. Going into the final round, they are both 9 under (8 shots off the leader).

For those of you who don’t play golf, I can’t stress enough how unusual it is that they have tied 3 straight rounds in a pairing. Unfortunately, they probably won’t show more than a clip or two of them on tv today. I guarantee you the ultimately winner, if there is one today, will talk shit about this all season long in the clubhouse and probably for many, many years to come.

You thought you were gonna read a *50 Shades of Grey* thread, right?

Cain and Posey both dropped down the leaderboard a bit but they are still tied at -16. For sports reference, Wayne Gretzky and his son in law stud golfer Dustin Johnson are at -17 and Alex Smith and his partner Jason Gore are at -13.  The current leaders are named Brian Swette and Louis Welch. I don’t know why they’re famous. CEO’s maybe.

Going into today’s round, you KNOW that Posey and Cain have a sizable bet on the outcome, right? Five K? More? If Pebble was a little closer I’d make the drive down to watch it all unfold. Both of them will probably make the cut so if it stays close today they’ll probably bet their next baseball contract on the final round results…..

Buster and Cain are both playing in the AT&T Pro Am this weekend down at Pebble. Buster checked in with a 14 handicap and is paired with Nick Watney (a golfer who I think can win this tournament outright). Cain is the better golfer with a 6 and he’s playing with Matt Bettencourt.

And after round one, whaddya know, Posey and Cain are tied for 4th place in the *Am* part of the *Pro* at -10.

Think there’s a bet or two under the table between those 2?

Goddamn, what a life those 2 lead.

Got tired of looking at a thread with “San Diego Padres” in it. We are running on fumes here at Flap Headquarters.

Pitchers and catchers report to Scottsdale on February 18th.

tick tock, tick tock, tick tock….

Anyone wanna talk about golf? Who’s got the winner of the AT&T? If you can nail a PGA winner cold then I will tell you that you really did something this Winter….

The San Diego Padres have have built quite a nice looking fantasy team for 2015.

They got tired of rolling out Quentin, Maybin and Venable in the OF, 3 guys I don’t think I’ve ever owned even once, so they went out and got Upton, Myers and Kemp. Three shiny names that often get drafted highly in season long leagues.

Their infield still sucks although MIddlebrooks is marginally interesting if he could ever stay healthy. Norris was a staple on most of my season long teams last year. He’s a nice upgrade at catcher for them but we’ll see how he does without the platoon crutch.

Their pitching staff is what really looks strong to me. Shields/Cashner/Ross/Kennedy/Morrow. I’ve drafted all 5 of those guys in one year or another. Their problem will be health. Cashner and Morrow will likely miss large chunks of the season if not the entire chunk. And Shields has a lot of innings on that regular-season arm of his…..

All in all, if I was a Padre fan, I’d be ecstatic going into 2015. My prediction is that it’s going to take a while for those guys to learn how to play together and I think most of the hitters are going to get fed up with that park, probably turning on each other by late July. And since the pitching staff will be breaking down right around the same time, I see the Padres finishing nearer the bottom the the NL West than the top in 2015.

Lemme get this straight: The Giants offer “Big Game (Regular Season) James” a 4 year/80 million dollar deal. He rebuffs it. Ok, it’s not something I’d turn down, but he’s his own man. I respect his decision.

And yet now he signs with the Padres for 4 years/72 million?

All I can come up with is that James Shields is an idiot. He’s got a kinda Cro-Mag look to him. This isn’t a surprise.

Every W we get over his this year will feel extra special…….

Let’s play a guessing game. Here are two tents camped out in front of AT&T last night. For those of you who aren’t out here, there’s a hellacious wind/rain storm blowing through the Bay Area right now.

And since I’ve switched back to the old editor at wordpress, it’s time for a poll. Why is it that whenever a website rolls out an “improved platform” I always end up going back to the old one because the new one sucks?

If this line is any indication of attendance today at fanfest I’m guessing parking won’t be a problem…..

Fanfest tomorrow. Anyone going?

New MLB commish Manfred supports legalizing sports betting. To which I say, in 2015 who still has trouble getting a bet down on a game?

And with the explosion of daily fantasy sports gaming it’s surprising to me that mlb isn’t working more diligently with the main players in fantasy sports (fanduel and draftkings) on a more rigorous marketing campaign the way the NBA is doing it. DFS sports players are the people obsessively clicking on the refresh button over and over at mlb.com.

Some of you probably saw this, but I just read that the Giants did, in fact, offer Big (Regular Season) Game James a deal last month— 4 years, 80 million. He rejected it and then they turned to Peavy and Voggy. Not exactly a pair that should be planned on making up for James-like production.

I would have done a 4 year deal with James and been fine with getting 2 years of solid “Cain-Like” production out of him. But whatever, he’s obviously got his sights set on more years/more dough.

I still don’t get why a guy like Shields wouldn’t want to come here in a nano-second. I think I’ve overestimated the important of winning to a major league baseball player……

Everyone wants him. Only one team gets him. My guess is that a player like this is not a good fit for the Giants. For one, there will be fierce competition and we all know how Sabean feels about that. If you don’t truly know how he feels then just look at his track record–he never gets guys like this. NEVER.

Secondly, he’s 19. This is not a major league ready guy. So you’re paying him 50 million (or whatever it is) to learn how to play in the minor leagues. And if he’s any good, then you have to pay him again once his contract expires soon after he makes it to the big leagues. Again, this is not “The Giants Way.”

So I will eat my hat if we get him.

But imagine if the Dodgers signed him and he was mentored by the wise and sage Puig? The gifs alone would be worth it…

Pffffttttttt….I’m not going.

Maybe it’s having already been to several of them, maybe I’m just not in the mood to fight the crowds, maybe it’s something else. I dunno. I just don’t have any interest in going this year.

Is that wrong? Are any of you going? Does the east coast Flap contingent think less of me?

Next week is the AT&T at Pebble Beach and there are rumors that all 3 WS trophies and all 5 SB trophies will be on display. Now THAT would be a rad photo op.

As a Niner fan, I have known recent great angst. We hit the trifecta with Kyle Williams, Super Bowl Goal Line Melt Down, and RIchard Sherman Tipped Ball. All 3 of those games were devastating. But last night’s Super Bowl had to have felt exactly the same for Seattle fans.

Not only did they incomprehensibly throw the ball at a time where you HAVE to give it to BeastMode, but they didn’t even throw it to their #1 receiver. Or their #2. In fact, yesterday, Richard Lockett was probably #4 behind the shocking emergence of #13 (I can’t even remember his name right now).And to throw it into traffic, where it could so easily have been tipped up in the air for disaster to strike (but in this case it was *merely* intercepted cleanly) was just beyond stupid. That was quite simply the worst call I have ever seen, considering the moment, the implications, and they had the #1 running back in football watching it all unfold without ever touching the ball. It reminded me of this great moment in movie history. If only Marshawn was able to speak. 🙂

If you run Lynch 2 straight times and he doesn’t get in at least you go down with your best shot. They went down with a gimmicky *out-think ’em* shot. But look, Lynch would have gotten in. They could have had 11 guys keying on him. Beast Mode would not have been denied. They don’t call it “LockettMode”, right?

The first and worst loss as a fan that I can remember was the Roger Craig Fumble Game. After that, it was Game 6 of the 2002 World Series. That had to be the worst, at least for us, right?

Although how can I forget the “Solomon Torres” game?

Fans know devastation. It’s what keeps us fans. It keeps us wanting more. If you don’t get that low you never get to truly appreciate that high…..