Risky Hire
Maybe I’m biased against Dave Roberts because he was a Giant during one of the worst times in franchise history. But I’m not sold on him being this *can’t miss* hire. In fact, I’m kinda glad he got the job. Can you imagine a newbie manager trying to match wits with Bruce Bochy? If the game is close next year, advantage Giants…….
Tomorrow night the Warriors will make history. After pummeling the Lakers into submission, they will be the first team in NBA HISTORY to start 16-0. And I can’t think of a better team to do it against. Golden State spent the better part of 3 decades smoking Laker pole. Now LA stinks and Kobe is delusional with his recent comments about his game. I freaking LOVE it…….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
I always liked Byron Scott, pride of Inglewood and U of Ariz. What a mess he has there, with the $20mill elephant in the room stinking up the joint every night. KB would do everyone a favor to retire right now.
As first time mgr. Roberts has his work cut out for him. See what kind of team FO puts on the field for him.
If the Doghairs move Puig, that would help Roberts. They seem to be re-tooling everything at the Latrine. Doesn’t bode well for a 4th straight division title. Especially if Greinke signs elsewhere…
Roberts has a cush job on the one hand and a possible nightmare on the other. One thing that Donnie did well- he was a pretty good zoo keeper. Roberts inherits what will be a very good team but he’ll have to control the clubhouse factions *and* win- in the postseason. I have no doubt that he’ll be a better tactician than 2trips but he has a challenge to get his team on one page.
Kruk brought up something interesting this morning when he talked about how Roberts always wants to be liked. He’s going to have to ditch that need ASAP if he wants to be successful.
I think Puig is as good as gone and that will probably help Roberts out a little (as Snarkk said above)
Good post, Flav. I too think Roberts has his work cut out for him. Will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.
If I remember right the LA Rams seemed to own the 49ers back in the John Brodie era.
That certainly turned around, too…
What’s on the table for Thanksgiving? We’ll just hole up with a nice fire, a little football, the usual fixings, and a good flick.
Same here, without the fire (I guess the gas heater looks kinda like a fire). We’re going to try and make Boudin at some point. It’ll be the first time we try this, so that should be interesting.
Kids are going to their mom’s, Gail’s son (Engineer for Cal Fire) will be working, so we will have a low-key event. I am making a lasagna and we will have a few friends over after we do the 5k walk as part of the “Run to Feed the Hungry” in Sacramento.
Football will of course be a part of the menu. And we will probably have a fire out back in the fire pit if it isn’t too damned cold.
Just read that Roberts was twice passed over this year to become the Padres manager. Hmmm….
Most people agree that Wotus would be a good manager and he’s been passed over 276 times ;- )
And while Wotus does not have ML experince as a manager, he did manage the Giants AAA club when in Phoenix (Firebirds) for a number of years (seven or eight, I believe), and was manager of the year one of those years.
And he was STILL passed over. i’d bet that most managers have been passed over for jobs before they landed a job. It’s a non-issue.IMO
Mattingly himself was passed over by the Yanks in favor of Girardi. Not a popular decision in NY.
Mattingly is by far the most beloved living ex-Yankee and that includes Jeter, Whitey, Mariano, etc…
Hey any of you Flappers seen that Hunter Pence video with his Girlfriend?
It’s all about the James Bond era’s from the 60’s to present, pretty cool both decked out to the nines.
Have not. Where’s the link?
Here is the link about which Kat was talking…Bonds…James Motherfucking Bonds, Bitches…
He shouldn’t be fuckin’ around like that after missing half the season with an oblique strain…
he’s been making a shit load of these short films with his girlfriend who he must be positively ruining every night……
Roberts is the safe easy choice. He won’t make waves or be too crazy out there. He’ll kowtow to the front office.
Kapler was the safe easy choice.
I don’t think either of them were a safe and easy choice.
Well, he certainly isn’t controversial.
I didn’t know that Eddie Milner had recently passed away at age 60.
Played quite a bit for the ’87 Giants…
that totally bums me out. He was one of my favorite players. Didn’t he hit the Giants 10,000th franchise HR? It was him or Ernie Riles, I think…..
Riles rings a bell, Flav…
Riles
“Mattingly is by far the most beloved living ex-Yankee”
I kind of sort of sometimes forget how great a player he was. In Knight’s book she mentions that he once hit 6 grandslams in 1 season! I did a double-take. I was thinking: is that a typo? I meant to look that up later. 6 grandslams in 1 season is just an insane stat.
I think it was the same year he homered in 8 straight (1987) which tied Dale Long’s record…
Good call.
And….here’s a list of the top grandslam hitters in a season. (The best name on the list is Wildfire Schulte.)
Travis Hafner 6 2006 Cleveland Indians AL 1
Don Mattingly 6 1987 New York Yankees AL
Ernie Banks 5 1955 Chicago Cubs NL 3
Jim Gentile 5 1961 Baltimore Orioles AL
Albert Pujols 5 2009 St. Louis Cardinals NL
Richie Sexson 5 2006 Seattle Mariners AL
Albert Belle 4 1997 Chicago White Sox AL 7
Ray Boone 4 1953 Cleveland Indians AL
Detroit Tigers AL
Vince DiMaggio 4 1945 Philadelphia Phillies NL
Lou Gehrig 4 1934 New York Yankees AL
Jason Giambi 4 2000 Oakland Athletics AL
Sid Gordon 4 1950 Boston Braves NL
Tommy Henrich 4 1948 New York Yankees AL
Ralph Kiner 4 1949 Pittsburgh Pirates NL
Edgar Martinez 4 2000 Seattle Mariners AL
Phil Nevin 4 2001 San Diego Padres NL
Jim Northrup 4 1968 Detroit Tigers AL
Mike Piazza 4 1998 Florida Marlins NL
Los Angeles Dodgers NL
New York Mets NL
Alexei Ramirez 4 2008 Chicago White Sox AL
Al Rosen 4 1951 Cleveland Indians AL
Babe Ruth 4 1919 Boston Red Sox AL
Wildfire Schulte 4 1911 Chicago Cubs NL
How juiced was the baseball in 1961?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1961-batting-leaders.shtml
so i’m watching mlb network and they ask the four member panel what they would do if they could be commissioner for a day. two said electronic strike zone and one said, bizarrely in my opinion, no september call ups, keep the roster size the same all year and post season. the fourth guy just joked around. which got me thinking, i know not my strong suit, but the first thing that i thought of was the strike zone. but the roster guy got me thinking that i would like to see the rosters expand to 28 or so. I also would like to see the season reduced to 154 games. so which is most important to me? probably the strike zone but the other two are pretty big too. i bet we see a fix to the strike zone or the rosters increase at some point but i don’t think they’ll ever shorten the season.
I’d like the NFL to fix the ridiculous catch rule before anything else. Yesterday, Crabtree caught a ball, took two steps in bounds, after he landed out of bounds (with both feet touching the ground) he lost his balance and leaned down and touched the ground with the ball in his hand. That was ruled a no catch. What do you have to do? Catch it and hold on to it till you give it to the ref? Catch rules are fucking beyond stupid right now……
I’ve been railing on that one for years. Ridiculous. Football move doesn’t consist of geting 2 feet down and going out of bounds? If the ground can’t cause a fumble, how can it cause an incomplete after the WR catches the ball in bounds and goes out.
For me:
Robot strike zone;
Bullpens cannot come onto field for “brawls “;
25 man expands to 28, but manager must select only 25 per game;
Winning pitcher selected by 3 designated sport writers per game, need not go 5 innings, but must pitch to at least 3 batters;
Runner sliding into 2nd base must touch bag with at least one foot or one hand when breaking up the DP;
Any starter may skip a start and be replaced one turn by a minor leaguer without going on the DL;
First base out/safe calls made by system where microchip is imbedded in 1st baseman’s glove and in the base.
Do you think a computerized jury of robots would work in the criminal justice system?
Does that exist anywhere?
i agree with all of this. Why can’t this get implemented tomorrow? Who could argue against ANY of this?
you’re entitled to a jury of your peers. For most rational people, that’s an incentive to avoid the event.
lulz!
well I can’t say i’m keen on the three writer rule. don’t see the need to select the 25 of 28. like the second base rule and the skipped start. don’t think we need the chip. if you can’t tell from the replay then tie goes to the runner (which you almost never see). what i would add is no shattering bats. this maple thing is going to get uglier and they’ve already had a pitcher impaled. not sure about the nets around the crowd but something could get ugly there too. certainly i could see a fine for letting a bat fly. i hate sitting behind nets/screens, but someone’s going to get killed eventually.
as for football, what’s that?
When Flavor posts a thread with a “smoking pole” line, you really can’t go wrong, can you?
Great read . . . 😉
Craig, you’ve mentioned a few times that you pretty much ignore all the hot stove rumors. I usually pay some attention to them (kind of like standing in the checkout line at the Safeway and, why not?, check out the National Enquirer headlines). But, case in point: Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe floating the rumor of discussions between Giants and Braves, Panik or Duffy for Shelby Miller. And then the story says those are 2 players the G’s do not want to trade. So… really… why bother with the rumor? And if Sabevans DID make that trade, we’d know they’ve lost it…
Going on a two day Mekong river trip with a friend tomorrow. Dunno if turkey will be an option. Tried playing DFS twice while here. No go because daily fantasy sports are prohibited outside the USA. Even tried with a VPN connection (Ap which hides your GPS location). So, I’ll have to wait until I return to Colorado on the 1st.
By the by. FB Jim Carrey post was awesome Flavor . . . A bit surprised though you weren’t aware of Carrey’s spirituality. I’ve been following him for quite a few years. As evidenced by his commencement speech, the dude is an outstanding speaker. Thanks for sharing.
Giants sent me a so-called Orange+Black Friday ticket promo. Pretty good marketing slogan: ‘TIS THE SEASON TO GET EVEN.
Hey, Magnus, SU just fired head football coach Scott Shafer. Remember him from Stanford?
I think Roberts is going to have a very hard time. By all accounts, extremely likable. Which, as noted above, may be his biggest weakness.
Throw brickbats at me if you want, but I am not sure Puig would be so bad as a Giant. In fact, our culture and our clubhouse would very possibly turn him around. But in reality I don’t see LA-SF trading. Pretty rare.
Not since Candy Maldonado for Alex Trevino? I want Puig bad…
Look how we turned Melky around . . .
Fresh off the Transactions wire: White Sox: Named Aaron Rowand minor-league outfield and base running instructor. I praise him in a Zito-esque way: without his (and Buster’s) defensive play against Phil in 2010 NLCS, very possibly we do not get to WS.
At least he’s not the hitting/batting stance instructor. Now Rohand can make those 500 swings a day again — not in his backyard, but in a cage underneath a real MLB stadium — for no good reason. Somewhere, somehow Kruk will be jazzed and highly impressed by the work ethic, which I’m sure at some point he will tell us about…
Thought McCovey would be on that grand slam list.
Wildfire Schulte?
the nfl is really unwatchable. i’m making dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner, bills/pats in the background. sit down with the bills getting the ball with less than two minutes. they throw a pass. the guys is tackled and i check the clock 1:40 remaining. tick tock. they finally get to the line of scrimmage and: stop. review of the last play. clock nows show 1:22. so they call the receiver down but do they reset the clock? noOOoooo. ridiculous. decided not to watch the rest.
Yep, add in the flag thrown every third play from scrimmage, and the inevitable “illegal block in the back” penalty virtually every punt, and almost every kickoff that actually has a runback. I’m thinking back to the NFL in the ’70s through mid-late ’90s. Totally different game — watchable. Not populated by teams with wuss coaches that punt with 3 minutes left in the game, being down by 2 TDs, so that the loss is arguably competitive…
Ooops. Didin’t see yours Wisco . . .
The NFL is damn near unwatchable with these refs. These guys completely fuck up plays routinely. There maybe used to be 4 or 5 bad calls a year. Now it’s 4-5 per game.
The refs in the game tonight blew a whistle on a play that was still in process. No one was close to being out of bounds, and the sideline ref blew the whistle for no reason. The refs blew the call they made on the field, and blew the reversal. They didn’t put the ball in the right place, and didn’t assess the penalty they called. NE lost a TD on the play, and ended up punting. Crazy.
The young folks supposedly are saying baseball is too slow, can’t watch it. NFL? There was a game several weeks ago, can’t remember which, with something like 25 penalties called. That’s 1 out of every 4 plays, just about. That is hideous, and makes baseball look great. At least in baseball there’s not a flag thrown and replay argument every 4th AB…
the college game is still fairly watchable but with the niners stinking it up and the ridiculous officiating, my sunday’s are a lot more free. what IS a catch by the way? I used to know. i’m pretty sure i still know but it sure doesn’t agree with what gets called. if you can’t get that basic of a play correct, what’s the point?
What annoys me about college is there’s little to no defense. Short of teams like Alabama and the Gators.
The Stanford Ore game, Oregon’s first 3 plays, basic runs up the middle, got them 160 yards and 2 TDs.
Last play of the game, Watkins catches the ball and goes out of bounds. But the ref signals run the clock out and the game ends.
At least the announcers rip the shit out of the ref constantly.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/23/sports/fantasy-sports-addiction-gambling-draftkings-fanduel.html?emc=edit_th_20151124&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=65245176&_r=0&referer=
Interesting article about gambling (DFS) addiction.