FanFest The Day After
FanFest is in the books and Gary Radnich has mercifully put the mike down. This was the best thing I saw come out of yesterday:
I was looking for a list of players who “boycotted” the event but couldn’t find anything. Maybe I should just let that go.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Per Giants reporter, Chris Haft, it sounds like the Giants will only have 5 outfielders. He said . . .
“Outfield (5): Jarrett Parker, Denard Span, Hunter Pence, Gorkys Hernandez, Michael Morse
If the race for the left-field berth between Parker and Mac Williamson is close, expect Parker to get the job, since he’s out of Minor League options and the Giants probably will want to maintain player inventory. Span and Pence start in center and right, respectively. Hernandez assumes Gregor Blanco’s fourth-outfielder role. Morse will stick around as long as he’s healthy to provide power off the bench.”
Looks like Williamson will go back to the minors and Ruggiano will be cut (Nunie being the jack of all trades). No idea why they want to keep Morse, who I consider a defensive liability in the outfield. Ruggiano isn’t a statue like Morse, as he has shown the ability to steal a lot of bases (14 one season) and play all outfield positions. That being said, at 34, he is way past his milk due date, but so is Morse.
Regardless, all of these guys coming to camp are basically stiffs on paper, so I guess it will shake out in Spring Training.
I think I might be overly impressed with people that can moonwalk….
Get on a smooth floor and give it a few minutes, BF, anybody can do it at least a little bit. Fred Astaire and the Nicholas Brothers, Bill Bailey and others were moonwalking years and years before Michael Jackson was born. They were real dancers with incredible skills; lots of tap moves are far more difficult than moonwalking. My younger snarkkette has done tap now for some years on and off, it is not easy. Hard on the ankles. Definitely you need to be well coordinated to do tap at a high level. Those older dudes may have been alive and seen Michael’s famous Billie Jean moonwalk w/overtly sexy moves on TV in the ’80s. They probably thought “WTF is the big deal about that?”…
Morse is a good dude, but he had 8 major league ABs last year with the Bucs. Yeah, 8. Then DFA’d, and never played again. WTF is he doing in camp other than a “lighting in the bottle” shot? Seriously, if Morse is on the 25 at end of ST, this OF will suck, by definition. What about this Slater kid– is he just a got hot last year kind of dude that is the typical Giants ghost minor league OFer? It seems every off season we look for a real stocking of the OF somehow, and it doesn’t happen.
http://aroundthefoghorn.com/2016/12/31/san-francisco-giants-riding-pine-michael-morse/
The article above seems to think Parker has the leg up in LF since he’s out of options and Williamson is not. But, what if Williamson hits the cover off the ball in ST? Plus, he’s RHed power, a plus in ATT. Is options left the critical deciding factor — the Giants would put the better performer down to the minors just because they can stockpile him there? Sadly, I find some believability in that…
Snarkk is absolutely right about all that…
Not thrilled about the alignment but I think Giants can make it work with Ruggiano instead of Morse.
Parker has played some RF too and can always back up Pence. Even as LH he’s shown opposite field power.
Let’s see who is the better hitter.
Not wild about Hernandez but he is a good defensive CF that runs well.
Oh our OF, everyear we talk about a upgrade and everyear were “Denied”
It’s not rocket scientist except in the minds of the top brass who always holds the potential kid back!
Wasn’t Morse at the last supper table with Jesus?
It’s not an outfield – it’s an outrage…
A bit dated article, but IMO really gives a good overview of the Giants’ total inability to internally develop outfielders. Pretty much mirrors my feeling on the topic. Bottom line, and I agree, is that by their conduct, the Giants must feel it is not that important to develop outfielders. The last Opening Day starting centerfielder that was a farmhand was Marvin Bernard in 2001…
http://aroundthefoghorn.com/2015/11/24/san-francisco-giants-homegrown-talent-is-covering-the-infield-but-where-are-the-outfielders/
It took awhile to wade through this column, but this part is key:
“Since 2000, the Giants have had 26 first-round picks. 14 have been pitchers and 6 have been infielders. So the focus is pretty clear. Stock up on the arms and the athletes, we’ll sort out positions later.”
As the author himself notes, it’s hard to knock the Giants philosophy, when they have been so successful on the field. Four World Series appearances, with 3 wins and an almost win – gives them the benefit of the doubt versus anyone who wants to argue with their recipe for success.
I love the 3 WS championships; I don’t love the outfields…
Never good when you bring :A stop gap player Michael Morse back for a second time..
I don’t think I can handle another season of Kuiper calling him “Morris”…
What’s Xavier Nady up to these days?
Hopefully enough that the Giants don’t give him a call…
The Giants need to continue drafting pitchers with lively arms and athletes (short stops). No issues with that philosophy. it works. However, in snarkk’s article, it was also mentioned about how the Giants have had success with bringing in outfielders such as Pence and Winn via trade or free agency. Personally, I have no problem with them doing that in lieu of their drafting process. As I said earlier, it works.
However, this off season, they had an opportunity for J.D. Martinez or someone almost as good, and they decided to stand pat, citing the luxury tax. The Giants are not a small market team, yet they think like that. We have a window of opportunity and it seems wasted by small mindedness.
I’m hopeful we will be in the playoffs, but frankly – getting one closer and saying that’s it, is ludicrous, when we all know that 3rd base and the outfield is a crap shoot. Span, Pence, Numie, Panik, Parker, and Williamson are all question marks in my opinion. Cain is finished, so there’s another black hole. Regarding the bullpen, we should have gotten Holland in case Melancon is injured or has a melt down.
Agree with just about all that, blade. I don’t understand the Giants mindset that seems like they will do just enough to be competitive and playoff worthy, but don’t do more to try to be dominant, and get some real bench depth. The Dubs didn’t stop at 2 straight visits to the championship series. They next went after Durant to be dominant. And, they are. Why the Giants won’t extend themselves beyond the world of pitching is a flaw, IMO. Luxury tax talk is BS; this team is printing money. I think we’ll be back in the position of late summer sometime bitching about the lack of outfield depth; and that we saw it coming, again. I have doubts that adding Melancon is enough to right the Pen ship. And, I’m hoping Cain goes onto the inevitable DL visit before he craters half a dozen games…
Durant example is spot on and illustrates exactly what we’re talking about. The Warriors under Meuili (sp?), were a struggling franchise, but found a way during that magical season. I loved the guy and his way worked one time. Today? Same team, but owners with money (just like the Giants), BUT THEY THINK BIG. The Giants act like they are owned by Meuli scraping for nickles when we all know they are flush with money. The Warriors didn’t sit on their laurels last season as you pointed out.
Agreed. Giants will be 5th in payroll this year but they are 30 mil behind the 2-4 teams. And 60 mil behind the Dodgers.
I hope he is doing well. Great post Flavor.
Speaking of owners who were not small minded, Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, who just passed away, pissed off fellow owners by spending a lot of money on players. More important, I just found out he paid Rosa Parks’ rent for more than a decade. Amazing man.
He also threw several pizza parties for H. Rap Brown…
Wow. Didn’t have any idea about that, Steve. Very very cool of him to do that.
They’ve ordered evacuation of Oroville town and nearby towns downstream. The emergency spillway at the Oroville dam is predicted to collapse at any time this hour — if you know anybody up that way, tell them to get the hell out of there and head North to Chico. If this spillway collapses about 30 feet of the lake water could immediately hit the river and flood downstream. The dam is not in danger of collapsing, yet anyway. This is no joke, folks…
Holy shit, this story made it look like there was no danger. Thank you for the report snarkk. I have friends in the area and I just cut and pasted your report for them.
http://www.kcra.com/article/water-begins-to-spill-over-oroville-emergency-spillway/8732032
Yeah, I been watching that. It is apparently for now slowing down and the erosion is slowing as well.
http://www.kcra.com/article/water-flows-out-of-emergency-spillway-at-lake-oroville-drop/8734513
But it’s gonna rain again by Thursday.
http://www.kcra.com/nowcast
live news on spillway…
wow, that could be devastating. I don’t know anyone up there.
Thanks for the live link snarkk.
Dept. of Water Resources has got to have screwed this up totally. Mismanaged lake level and releases. How can you have the regular spillway have a huge hole develop in it? If 30 feet off the top of the lake spill out fast, that’s hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water flooding down the riverbed…
Mercury is carrying a live blog. If you have Facebook friends who live in the area, cut and paste this for them if you are unable to reach them by phone.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-live-update-spillway-is-in-danger-of-failing/
If I lived up there i’d moonwalk my ass outta there. I watched a video today on how to teach yourself to moonwalk. Tried out some of their tips. It did not go well.
I ate that crap all the time. The brand of choice in my house was Swansons.
My Mom couldn’t F up cooking that dinner… 😉
That’s too funny, I’d almost forgotten about TV dinners. We kids always loved it when the folks had evening plans to go out: TV dinners, yay! Loved that sickeningly sweet apple crisp. ………………..
Funny how these public officials aren’t using the word “flood”. That’s what it is, if it happens. They are having news conference congratulating each other’s bureaucracy for being ready to execute “plans”. Apparently, there was a hole developing near the bottom of the auxiliary spillway, so if it gets bigger, it will undermine the entire wall of the spillway, and it could collapse. There’s 3.5 million acre feet of water behind that dam. If for some reason the entire dam failed, that’s enough water to flood 5500 square miles of land with one foot of water…
Chicken pot pies too. Yep, Paul’s right – the best thing about those TV dinners was the apple crisp. No idea why the Salisbury steak doesn’t have it. Usually located between the carrots/peas and mash potatoes. Cheap bastards.
I think the Swanson’s brand had the apple crisp. Didn’t they also have a cherry crisp? Swanson’s was the upscale TV dinner, I think. No microwave ovens in those dark ages…
Per Wiki, Swanson added desserts (such as apple cobbler and brownies) to a new four-compartment tray in 1960.
Fuckers raised their prices 19 cents though. HAHAHA
That one was the best of the scary best back then!
I would gladly eat that bad boy over my Mom’s bless her heart ❤️Roast that she cooked for 12 hrs and tasted like shoe leather if you could even cut thru it..
Who the F designed a dam emergency spillway that when it is finally used for just over a day, is in danger of collapsing? And, after 50 years, why couldn’t somebody have figured out that this would happen? Or, maybe somebody did, but nobody did anything?…
Just chalk it up to aging and crumbling infrastructure throughout the U.S. It won’t get better in the Trump era. Trump’s too busy trying to figure out how to fund a 2,000 mile Berlin Wall.
The Polish center for Gonzaga looks like a legit player. He’s huge, 7 feet tall, 300 pounds, but also has decent footwork, and a soft touch around the basket. Intriguing draft choice for some team.
Maybe he can plug up that leaky dam out there…
Even more TV dinner goodies…
http://clickamericana.com/topics/food-drink/its-swanson-tv-dinner-time-1961-1968
lol. I’d be so bummed if my mom gave me a fucking Swanson’s tv tray for my birthday and shoved a candle into the crumbling blueberry thing.
Ha, I occasionally eat frozen dinners at work when there aren’t any leftovers to take in. Such is the life of working nights. Got a couple Hungry Man dinners and Marie Callender chicken pot pies sitting in the freezer. No apple crisp included with the bourbon beef strips, though. My favorite as a kid was a box of fried chicken, probably Banquet.
Three foods that taste better from the frozen section than homemade.
1. Swanson’s Salisbury steak
2. Marie Calendars Pot Pies
3. Stouffers Swedish Meatballs
I have never had any of those 3 things, lol. At least i don’t think I have. Never had a pot pie. Don’t think I’ve ever had a Salisbury steak and, in fact, I would argue HARD that the pic up above is not a steak. And what is a Swedish meatball? Those big ass circles of meat? Can’t say I’ve ever had that either.
My dad was a dentist, he wasn’t down with the tv dinners. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had one.
They don’t exist anymore like we old geezers had.
BF, you’ve not lived without tasting a Salisbury steak frozen TV dinner.
But, you can find now all sorts of similar stuff in the freezer section at the grocery store. The “Lean Cuisine” set of frozen food dinners is not bad…
Think the best BF might try is PF Chang frozen boxes 📦! Some are quite good, but not 2for 3.99 like Swanson’s!!
I had a Marie Callender pot pie this past week. They’re good.
Yeah their not bad Zumie. But my favorite would be Stouffers a little more bang for your buck imo.
Cracking up about Flav’s mom serving him a TV dinner for his birthday, with a candle in the blueberry muffin. That is frickin’ hilarious.
Me? Today, I will only eat from the organic freezer section, e.g., Amy’s makes healthy frozen food, free from preservatives, GMOs, and low on sodium. Usually, they are no more than 360 to 410 calories.
Amy’s made a great square individual sized pizza that I can’t find anywhere anymore…
I like their pizza. Are you sure Loo? They don’t make a square pizza to the best of my knowledge. They are in boxes, but all round (except for the toaster pizza squares . . . maybe that’s what you meant). Here is the pizza 2 page section of their web page . . .
https://www.amys.com/our-foods?onthemenu%5B0%5D=pizza&page=1
Mmmmm…..pizza…..
This was it, Blade. I don’t know why they stopped making it…
Bet Bruce Willis is not a fan of TV dinners( well he shouldn’t be with his coin) after he felt like a TV dinner in Die Hard in the metal ventilation shaft..
When I was very little and my mother would fry bacon, I would stand next to her and she would feed me little strips of it completely raw from the package as a snack. It was delicious and I never got sick from it…
Pioneers coming west in the 1800s sometimes ate raw bacon.
That explains it!
But it was covered with salt.
Yeah, the office stocks the freezer with hot pockets, pot pies, and corn dogs.
Can’t do the hot pockets (hey, got to have SOME standards), but I still dig the corn dogs and pot pies.
And yeah, we’d get the occasional TV dinners. And yeah, my mom cooked like if it wasn’t completely dried up and shriveled, there was the danger of it being undercooked.
What I miss is the Round Table pizza sandwiches. It was a loaf of french bread cut in half and dressed like a pizza. Covered in linguica and pepperoni. Damn that was good.
The Grammies were tonight and, yes, there’s no reason to care.
Sturgill Simpson kicked ass. Otherwise, the show was turrabull.
Frickin’ 11:10 pm and I am now starving . . . Unfortunately, due to my Hawaii/Vietnam trip on Tuesday, there’s only some wilted celery, a few pickles and shit to make a half ass smoothie. Better go to bed instead.
From the looks of it, lots of us had mothers that cooked the hell out of everything…
Exception here – my mom is practically a gourmet chef. Seriously.
Twitterverse nuts have been busy blaming Jerry Brown and Obama for today’s dam drama. Turns out 12 years ago the damn “liberals” like Friends of the River warned at the dam’s relicensing that the Oroville emergency spillway should be bolstered by a concrete cover, else the spillway was at risk of being undermined by water flow if it were ever actually used — risking a catastrophic flood. Bush administration, after getting tish tosh reports by LA Metro and other water districts who did not want to pay for the strengthening, and Ahnold’s administration, said it would never happen, no worries. Until today…
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/
Almost never ate tv dinners as a kid. Avoided them ever since. But by chance, I found a 9.99 bag of frozen chicken piccata one night in the Safeway, on my way home from the gym. I never eat that frozen stuff, but wtf. I really like piccata. The ingredients were pure. And god damn it was good. Two days later, I stopped by again and–it was gone, replaced with WTF home stir fry or some shit. Colorfully packed with sugar and preservatives. The unusually good frozen dinner is long gone. So now I’m back to chops and steaks and veggies steamed in chicken broth. Fresh.
Yes, FanFest has come and gone. I am with Flav. I have not been in years, and don’t plan on going anytime soon (crowds, lines, etc.). Fuck that.
Hey – only ONE day until pitchers and catchers report!
Baseball is in the air, baby!
Throwing boulders on this makes no sense at all. I’m not an engineer, but I was the Safety Manager at Shasta Dam . . . This article, as well as the photo proves my point:
Article . . . http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/12/us/california-oroville-dam-failure/index.html
Will be interesting to see how they proceed, and to hear about what type of mitigation plan they plan to implement. Next storm is supposed to hit on Thursday, so they have a couple of dry days to evaluate and put a plan into action. Crazy times in CA…from record drought for a couple of years to this…