A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

They start playing that tonight, I think. Three games? Or four? I haven’t checked. I don’t like baseball that is THIS CLOSE TO ME that still doesn’t count.

So I won’t be watching it.

But updates are always appreciated from those who do.

Stumbled upon this clip about the ’82 team. Some great clips in this. There’s  a part 2 I might watch later. Make sure you watch it all the way till the end and you get to meet *Americas Next Lover* lqtm. Solid gold.  ****update***** I watched Part 2. You should too. I bet there were some Flappers in those crowd shots in both videos.

Felt like posting another black and white photo from my youth. Loved this dude.

Staying in lockstep with the boredom of this 2015 spring, the Giants made the final cuts on a team that will offer few surprises opening day.

Cory Gearrin is the new face in the bullpen and Trevor Brown has probably made the club as the back up to Buster. Agent 000 will man his usual spot on the bench.

13 pitchers and a bench so thin you’re not even sure if it’s there….

For those of you who wanted “Jimmy” or someone else, I’ll let Coach Dale explain it to you.

But who cares? Baseball is almost here.

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2 of my all time favs:

I read this story this morning and was as astonished that i hadn’t heard of it as much as I was with the details of the story. This is incredible.

http://www.mercurynews.com/giants/ci_29688837/san-francisco-giants-top-prospect-starting-over?source=rss

I’ve watched the clip on the internet, maybe you guys saw something additional. All I can take from this is that Bumgarner is a dick. Chill out. It’s spring time. Birds are chirping. Not every sniffle from a batter needs to be the impetus for launching you off the mound looking for a fight. Save a fight for something bigger. Or, you know, actually fight. All he ever does is strut and lean and flap around. He’s like a circa 2009 Splash blogger.

Madison Bumgarner, Jason Heyward Nearly Fight Over Misunderstanding (Video)

I’d love to see Bryce Harper try out one of his newly choreographed celebration dances after blasting one off Bumgarner. Lol. He’d get murdered.

It’s Shop Tawk Time over at the Cardinal blog and I will post the link to his article when it’s up. Daniel told me he would check in throughout the day to discuss any Cardinal/NL Central questions we might have.

http://www.cardsconclave.com/2016/03/24/playing-pepper-2016-san-francisco-giants/

As you know, I don’t have too many of those. But maybe you guys do. My first question is, why is Yadi Molina so revered in St. Louis? Is it just his WAR number? Because I don’t get it. He seems to be a player on a pretty steep decline but maybe he’s healthy now. Although for an aging catcher who seems to leave it all on the field every game he plays, I’m guessing his body is starting to wave the white flag.

How old is Adam Wainwright? Seems like he’s been around since the mid-80’s.

What’s the fallout from the Cardinals hacking into the Astros data base? Will there be a penalty? I honestly haven’t followed this since it went down.

Assuming the Cardinals are playing for one of the wild card spots, and I think everyone assumes that, what chances do you give them of getting it?

Enjoying these questions so far Daniel? lol. Sorry, these are the only ones I could come up with this early.

Maybe the Flappers will generate something…….

Thanks in advance for the Playing Pepper spot at your blog!

Not gonna lie, Hunter Pence roping the shit out of the ball last night really got me going. He showed me he’s healthy and isn’t showing that to ME all that really matters? lqtm.

I haven’t seen him in one of his girlfriend’s dumb ass gifs in at least a week. Correlation?

They say his HR got out of the park at 114 miles per hour which is 1/2 mile per hour faster than the hardest ball he hit all of last season.

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Two flaps pointed skyward for San Dawg’s dad who passed away a couple of months ago……

I think Belt is going to have a great year. His last chance to turn around all you “trade Belt!” guys. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

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I mean, I wouldn’t say my feelings about him would NEVER change. Most fans don’t like every player on the team. But if he finally had a break out year, I’d get on board and readily admit I was one of the last ones to get on the Beat off to Belt Train.

My 2 main issues with Belt: his slumpy ass look when he fails and his passionate obsession with striking out at the worst possible times. The injuries don’t really bother me, a lot of them have been out of his control. I think I also don’t like that so many Flappers here defend him. I don’t know why that bothers me but it probably contributes to my dislike.

The dude always hits in Arizona when it doesn’t count. False promise of Spring eternal. Here’s a list of his batting averages in the first month of each season once they leave AZ:

2011: .192

2012: .278

2013: .235

2014: .255

2015: .235

So James can start re-wrapping the inside of his house in plastic if Belt shows up raking right now of the gate this year……..

Baggs wrote a piece today on the worth of Brandon Belt and the differences in opinion of how one gets to his worth.

Personally, I would not sign him to a long term deal. And not just because I don’t like him. He will be looking for Freddie Freeman money since they’re both rep’d by the same agency. I think most agents would shoot for that number, though.

I’m not going to spend the time debating his worth through the backdoor of advanced analytics since those numbers can be valuable in predicting future production and I support their use. And just because he gets hurt all the time doesn’t mean that’s something you can predict will happen in the future since the type of injuries need to be factored in and Andrew Bogut is a good example of a guy who got hurt all the time early in his career only to put weirdo injuries behind him (for the most part) once he became a Warrior (current injury not withstanding).

My argument against signing Belt is simple: he’s blocking Buster Posey. And while that line deserves a bit of an *lol* it’s mostly true. Posey’s deal isn’t going anywhere and he IS going somewhere (first base). Hopefully in the next year or two.

And I’m not interested in giving Belt 20+ mil a year to find out if he would be worth that as a left fielder.

Your thoughts?

I’ve never really let political beliefs of others bother me too much. I’m not talking about super radical shit, just whether you are a Republican, a Democrat or something else. Whatever. To each his own and I stopped getting into political debates a long time ago. Nobody EVER changes their mind.

But this Trump thing has changed all of that for me. It has exposed a large section of America that I guess I had hoped didn’t exist. I almost never run into a Trump supporter in person but when I do I think to myself “how could anyone be that stupid?” So far, it hasn’t been anyone I would actually call a friend. Even some of my friends who hate Clinton can’t bring themselves to support Trump. But for the first time in my life, I think I would have a very difficult time being friends with someone who is so mindless and brain dead.

And it got me to thinking this morning, after I read an article about Scott Idiot Baio pledging his support for Trump (does anyone really care who a washed up celebrity supports politically?) would I still be able to support a Giant who is backing Trump? If MadBum came out today and said he’s all-in on a Trump presidency, would I look at him differently when he’s on the mound?

The answer is, probably not. It’s not like I ever interact with MadBum socially. And he’s given me too many things to be happy about to ever not support his work as a pitcher for the Giants. So I have to admit that there is at least a capillary of hypocrisy running through me.

If one of my buddies ever wins a World Series as a member of the Giants and he’s dumb enough to support Donald Trump, I guess we would still be friends. I’d at least root for him to succeed during the games.

Warriors in deep tonight without 3 of their best defenders (Bogut, Iggy and Festivus). Bogut is really the only surprise. Still, after getting run ragged last night, now on no rest and without their best interior defender (and passer) I am worried about this game. The good news is that I don’t think the Spurs match up very well with Golden State. So there’s that……

Several amazing college basketball games on the slate today.

I’d love to know what LaRoche told his kid about all of this.

Trevor Brown seems to have nudged ahead of Andrew Susac for the back up catcher spot and that is this spring’s biggest surprise. Peavy loves this guy and that goes a long way with Bochy who would follow Peavy to the end of the earth.

Gotta think Gorkys Hernandez is the odds on 5th outfielder over Mac and Parker, two guys who the Giants want to have play every day. And it could be time for Kyle Blanks to wave the white flag on his feet—dude cannot stay healthy.

Peavy has shaved his ERA under 9.00 so there’s that….

This is the first year in forever that I’m not filling out brackets. DFS is just far more interesting to me than click-clacking away on dozens of Yahoo brackets. Plus, I couldn’t care less about everyone tripping over themselves to show me their brackets. I don’t care about your brackets, lol.

I also don’t care about The Smarge getting blasted yesterday. Spring training means nothing to me. I think he’s going to have a huge year for us.

Here are the guys on the 40 man with 5 years of service who are out of options:

George Kontos, Cory Gearrin, Ehire Adrianza, Hunter Strickland

I’d expect that at least 3 of them are in SF on opening day (Kontos, Gearrin and Strickland). That’s assuming Cain misses the first week and they can keep Gearrin in the bullpen.

Something probably needs to change with baseball’s concussion protocol. How in the hell do you get hit in the head, stay in the game, AND THEN go into CP once the game ends? It probably has to do with symptoms that begin later like a headache or blurred vision. But duh. If you know there are symptoms coming and you aren’t feeling them in the moments after you get hit in the head but YOU KNOW THE SYMPTOMS COULD BE COMING you have to get the guy out of there.

Remember last year after Belt got hit in the head (I think pre-game) but he played that night and as he was rounding 2nd heading to 3rd a throw from the catcher missed his head by inches? That’s how I remember it anyway. Belt might be dead now if that ball had connected with his dome.

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Sacto Kings talk. I love it. Cousins got suspended for yelling at Karl who hadn’t been defending him vigorously enough, in Boogie’s eyes, to the refs who kept whistling him for fouls.

He has come back from his suspension saying he and Karl still haven’t talked even though Karl says they have “exchanged pleasantries.”

Seriously, why is Karl sticking around for this nonsense? He’s 64 years old, he’s been the head coach for 6 NBA teams, he doesn’t have enough dough stashed away to live how ever he wants?

Because you can’t tell me he enjoys going to work and having Boogie give him death stares at practice, sit several feet away from during time outs (and not even look his way) and scream at him in public every time he snaps (which is often).

And what is Divac doing? Do SOMETHING. Trade Boogie, fire Karl, ANYTHING. Sticking your big head in the sand doesn’t seem to be working…….

He threw out a tweet yesterday and I gave it the quickest, snarkiest response possible. I would probably change it to “no. 16. 7th inning stretch”.

I love the 7th inning stretch. It’s just the perfection of baseball encapsulated into one minute. And I’m all about “take me out to the ballgame” not that silly “God Bless America” nonsense that started after 9/11.

Anyway, how would you guys answer Lurie’s tweet?

Not that this matters, but we’ve passed the *1000* team at bat point (1,176). Team is batting .250 collectively. Boring spring continues on……

I was trying to figure out a way to sum up the Goose Gossage thing and then Murph did it for me. Here is this perfect, short exchange on KNBR this morning:

Murph: “Hey, have you seen the Goose Gossage rant yet?”

Christian Arroyo: “No, I haven’t.”

M: “Do you know who Goose Gossage is?”

CA: “No.”

lqtm.

I have concerns re Pagan in LF. The guy did not look good out there a couple of times– and his throws looked like they came off a wet noodle arm. As said above, time to get Arroyo some reps in LF down in AAA…

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Snarkk’s critical assessment is more valuable, to me, than any of the blather coming out of camp/Kruk about this guy’s “positive attitude” during his “contract year.”

Look, this isn’t some young buck learning a new position who is going through some growing pains. Pagan is done. We all saw it last year and Snarkk has now confirmed it with his on-field scouting report that he did while also powering down tacos AND keeping a watchful eye on a set of double D’s that were on the verge of mayhem. Absolute, unbridled mayhem…..

That is some sweet, sweet multi tasking……

What sucks is that we probably won’t see him go until well into the season UNLESS he gets hurt. Which is actually likely. But Bochy and Sabean have so much respect for this dude, combined with probably an underlying fear of what he might do to them if they piss him off, that we will probably get a healthy dose of Pagan for a good part of 2016. Probably the same dose of Rowand we were served on the back end of his bad deal.

Pence is going to make his debut some time in the next couple of days. While I am hopeful that he’s focused up on his trade, it seems dumb ass videos aren’t satiating enough for him or his new bride.

Here’s their next venture:

http://www.csnbayarea.com/giants/getting-weird-hunter-pence-fiance-lexi-host-radio-series

Anyway, looking forward to him getting on the field. Speaking of “the field” I’m also looking forward to hearing more from Snarkk who surprised everyone with his attendance at the game last night.

Big Blanky (ok, he needs a new nickname) tied Big Mac for ST home runs at 2 yesterday. Even this early, it’s becoming clear what the plan is— If Big Blanky stays healthy he makes the team–send down Big Mac and get him some at bats till Pagan gets hurt, then bring him up.

In fact, Big Blanky will probably be the opening day starter at first base since Belt can’t hit Kershaw.

Thoughts?

Before Shark struck out Puig in the first inning, Kuip couldn’t stop marveling at his physique as he waiting in the on deck circle.

“Look at Puig! He’s huge! It looks like he borrowed somebody’s football shoulder pads!”

And then he struck out on, I think, 3 pitches.

I’ve never understood all the hype about Puig. I think fans get lulled in by his Greek god like appearance. Nobody seems to care about his 10 cent head. Or the fact that he can’t hit a slider. Or his actual production over his entire career.

If I told you he hit 46 home runs, 149 RBI’s with 25 stolen bags you might say “yup, I always expected him to put up MVP numbers.” Except that’s over the course of 3 seasons. For comparison, the perceived light hitting Brandon Crawford has 40 home runs and 196 over the same 3 seasons that Puig has played. Granted, that’s in 200+ more at bats. But no one has ever suggested that Brandon Crawford is one of the best hitters in the league.

The fall back for the Puig supporters is that he’s only 25 and under normal circumstances that would make sense. But this guy is a special kind of dumb and I think we will see a career of unfulfilled promise when it’s all said and done.

But those shoulders, man, they are magnificent!

He hit 2 bombs yesterday and the internet jizzed itself.

I like the kid too but he has nearly no shot to make the club out of spring training. MAYBE if Pagan gets injured earlier than usual he slides on to the team in a platoon role. But I hope that doesn’t happen.

He’s played exactly 54 games at AAA and hitting .249 at that level doesn’t exact qualify you for a semi-regular big league job.

He’ll start the year at AAA as planned and get as many at bats in as possible before Pagan gets hurt (or released).

But it’s exciting to think we might finally have a home grown outfielder who won’t be a proud member of The Bowker Gang…….

So what would that make him? A proud member of The Chili Davis Gang? The loneliest gang of them all……

Editor note: Chili was drafted by the Giants in the 11th round of the 1977(!) draft….

….and that’s about all for your Giants news.

Hey, Niner fans, this guy wrote a good article on why SF is fucked with this Kaep situation:

http://mweb.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jason-la-canfora/25499842/why-the-49ers-only-trade-option-for-colin-kaepernick-is-the-rival-rams

I can’t see us doing a deal with the Rams but the rest of his case is surprisingly accurate in it’s doom and gloom.

Catch any new dumb ass Hunter Pence videos this morning? I did, will post later…..

Giants being forced to put up more netting in front of the good seats. I haven’t sat down there in years so this doesn’t really affect me. But I’m wondering if you’d be more or less likely to pay the fat dollarage to sit behind the dugout if you had to peer through thick netting.

Personally, I think this is a complete overreaction. Pay attention to the game, you will be fine.

Oakland is NOT one of the teams required to add more netting as the league decided that flying bats hitting rows and rows of empty seats is not that big of a deal…..

Horse. Shark. Peavy.

Who do you think is the most critical to the success/failure of the team this year? Assuming the other 2 meet expectations.

Before you quick-draw to Shark just remember that while he’s expected to be the #3 he doesn’t HAVE to be the #3. And really, in the regular season, 3 and 4 are pretty interchangeable. So if all 3 are healthy and meeting expectations I don’t think you could snap-call Shark as more critical to the other 2 in the march towards the 2016 post season.Any of those guys COULD be the #3/#4.

However, if Shark pulls a Timmy and sucks but keeps getting run out there every fifth day, I think that would be the most damaging to the team. You have to assume that if Horse and/or Peavy are faltering it would be due to health and they would probably get shelved in favor of Hest-by-Hest or some Blackburny-equiv.

So by that measure, Shark could do the most damage to the season if he sucks simply because he’ll be given more rope than the other 2.

Thoughts?

****Pence has inflammation, no structural damage, so that’s good—shouldn’t impact his ability to act in his girlfriend’s dumbass gifs/short films.

****The Rockies are raising the fences this year. That kinda came out of left field, didn’t it? What the hell is going on in Colorado?

****Turns out the Mets gave Cuddyer a 2 mil buyout. I thought you couldn’t do that in MLB? Anyone know the rules about this?

For me, today has always been the start of baseball season, Spring and Day Light Savings Time. And yes, that does create some day to day logistical problems…..

For some reason I’m more worried about Hunter Pence than I am Matt Cain. Or maybe I’m equally worried about them. Had I not followed Pence and his fiance all off season on Twitter I wouldn’t even be giving this foot issue a second thought. But I have too much information. I’ve seen too many bad short films and dumb gifs.

Don’t sweat it, I will shoulder the worry about Pence while you guys stress about Cain. My worry is irrational. I think. No reason for others to get dragged down by it……