A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

I still don’t understand why Yusmeiro Petit isn’t a Giant. This guy was nails for us out of the bullpen—a bullpen that has not been nails since he left. He’s affordable, he’s reliable and now he’s in Oakland. While guys like Derek Law and Tyler Beede “instagram” their way through their careers, Petit just keeps his nose to the grind and works. I wish we had him and more guys like him in our bullpen….

RPAD Time:

lol, check out the vote results…(I still have no idea who Bartlett is)

https://oneflapdown77.com/2010/11/30/good-bye-uribe-now-who-is-our-ss-for-2011/

I’m not a Beatles fan at all so maybe those who are wouldn’t be surprised by this. 1969 was the last time all 4 were photographed together?

Well, now that we’ve closed the book on Dave O’Gorman’s urgent request from Cambodia, we can move on to other more pressing things. These two pictures showed up back2back in my twitter timeline and I thought they were cool. That’s it for today:

RPAD Time:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2014/11/28/having-the-right-blood/

Late November is not known as good time to harvest interesting threads. As I was sitting here in the dark trying to come up with a different way to spin Stanton not ever coming to the Giants I noticed a 25th comment on the last thread pop up. This was it. Please help this guy out if you can and maybe he’ll tell us more about Cambodia. Dave O’Gorman is a good reminder of why baseball fans are the best…. either that or maybe the nightlife in Cambodia ain’t what it used to be. 🙂

I’m on the other side of the world in Cambodia and I’ve been watching some old regular season baseball games on YouTube. Can someone recommend a regular season Giants home game from any year before 2017 — without telling me the exact outcome or spoiling why they’d recommend it — that I can watch in its entirety on that platform this evening? Just a date and year, home games only please. Thanks!

RPAD Time. Four years ago. No reason for it, just liked the Panda for Cespedes rumor:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2013/11/27/reaction-to-bruce-jenkins-interview/

Well that wraps up a pretty uneventful holiday weekend. I did knock in an eagle from 165 yards out on the 9th hole at The Boulders (south course)—that resulted in some unadulterated hoopla, let me tell you.

But on the baseball front things are quiet.

Cardinal and Dubs both won. Today the Niners stretch their win streak to 2.

RPAD Time. I don’t even remember who *Bartlett* is.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2010/11/26/derek-jeter/

Today is Thanksgiving and I’m flying out of here in a couple of hours. I won’t be bringing my laptop as I try to lessen the likelihood that TSA will screw with me. The ultimate dream is to one day walk on to a plane with no carry on, shirtless, wearing nothing but a speedo and flip flops. Scan that, bitches. And “helllloooo!!!!!” adjacent seatmate.

So today is the last Flap post till Sun. Find something in this darkening world to be thankful for and I’ll catch you guys on the flip side….

The local radioheads kept filling the airwaves with hopeful Stanton wishes. They stand by their claim that the main selling point from the Giants camp is their ability to take on the contract of both Stanton and Gordon. This doesn’t make any sense to me. With the team up against the lux cap already, and with other teams with big cash way below it, how is this *advantage SF?*

I am for bringing all of these guys aboard. I know I’ve been back and forth on this. But I’m already tired of completely wasted years like the one we just went through. If we pay a few more guys too much money, who cares? We’re already doing that. And it’s not like the brass is going to suddenly wake up and decide a tear down is the way to go. So I want them to get as good as they can get with new, expensive players. And if we add Gordon and Stanton and lose Panik (really, Joe is like a healthier version of Duffy) and Bum and Cueto bounce back, who’s to say we can’t compete for a WC spot next year.

I’ll take that. With nothing in the pipeline, another year of narrowly avoiding 100 losses is of no interest to me……

RPAD Time:

A nice Thanksgiving day retro from 2012

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/11/22/happy-thanksgiving-flappers/

We always hear about the 40 man roster, mostly as it relates to moves we can’t make because of it. The 40 man does nothing but hamstrings and inhibits. It’s an obstructor. I almost never look at it. GM’s always speak of it in near hushed, hallowed tones……

Here’s a look at recent Giant moves regarding the 40 man:

I’ve heard of two of those guys…

What in the fuck was someone or something named “Engelb Vielma” doing on the 40 man? His name reads like a sleepy Trump tweet. #covfefe

RPAD Time:

11/21/11

https://oneflapdown77.com/2011/11/21/candlestick-park-left-field-bleachers/

launch angle on point:

I appreciate Blade’s post about *the wilderness years*, I really do. But I just can’t bite the bullet. I don’t want to bite the bullet. We only have so many years left as fans, I don’t want to spend them watching Belt walk and Posey deftly go the other way every game.

Simply put, I don’t trust the Giants brass to do a tank job tear down. Besides having never done it before and having no idea how to do it, it’s something they would never do. And because of the first part of the last sentence, that’s probably a good thing…..

So I’ll keep shining those 3 beauties on the mantle and celebrate whatever new deck chairs they put out on the main breezeway. Cain? I guess, sure. Stanton? Ditto. Billy Ham? Yes please.

Any team except the one we had to watch last year. Eat money. Cut guys. I don’t give a shit. Just find a way to get rid of the rotting core….

And trading Bumgarner should be goal #1. I’m assuming he’ll have to come out of the blocks solid next year. But by mid season, and we are toiling in last place, it would be a fantastic time to trade a legend like Bum who would still be controllable for the 2019 season. I have to believe a contending team would overpay for Bum at the deadline next season…..

RPAD Time:

Ah, Big Game memories….

https://oneflapdown77.com/2010/11/20/big-game-day/

LoAfter reading this, I’m off Cain. For some reason I thought he was younger. Unless he wants a 2 year/40mil deal, I’m happy to have him sign elsewhere.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/free-agent-profile-lorenzo-cain.html

RPAD Time:

And 3 years later, I’m excited to get him. Funny how things change.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2014/11/19/dumb-off-season-deals/

And now I will spend the morning celebrating another Big Game victory followed by ANOTHER celebration this afternnoon: Niners on a bye, no loss today. That’s a victory, too.

Loo and MacDog today at a football game in NY

Looking at all those retro threads makes me realize how stupid hot stove talk is. We spent a lot of time voting on and discussing guys who either never came here or who just plain sucked the following year. Therefore I’m just gonna throw 2 flaps in the air and say RIP to Malcolm Young, the heart and soul of one of my favorite bands of all time…..

There’s no way I could pick a favorite song…..

Big Game this weekend. My enthusiasm for the Big Game has waned over the years. Surprised Stanford is 16 point favorites. Both teams have something to play for and 16 points is a lot.

Ah, another week of sucking off the sweet teat of victory. Niners bye ensures it…..

RPAD Time:

From 2012. Another example of spending too much time evaluating shit in November.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/11/17/if-the-crazy-horse-rides-off-into-the-insane-sunset/

Huge Warrior game tonight, at least if you’re interested in seeing if the rest of their regular season will be anything other than dominating blow outs. Boston’s defense could cause the Dubs some troubles and even with a broken face Kyrie always saves his best for Golden State. If the Warriors win another blow out tonight this is going to be a very boring rest of 2017/2018 till the playoffs start….

RPAD Time. Stix is on fire in this one:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2010/11/16/hands-down-rookie-of-the-year/

As we pine away for guys like Stanton, Billy Ham or even Randal Grichuk, it’s important to temper our enthusiasm with blubs like this from mlbtradrumors.com:

“Of course, it remains to be seen just how the Giants will remedy their outfield situation. Joel Sherman of the New York Post also chatted with Evans, and the GM acknowledged that the poor reputation of San Francisco’s farm system makes trading with other organizations more difficult. Evans also plainly stated that the Giants would “prefer not to go over [the luxury tax barrier] for the fourth straight year.””

Personally, I doubt the “poor reputation” is the problem. True, almost none of the players the Giants trade ever amount to anything but teams have their own scouting people, if they like a guy I can’t imagine that past traded players failures inhibit the desire to acquire. In fact, all of the best minor league talent the Giants have made it to the show and stayed there (Crawford, Panik, Belt, Posey, etc…).

The goal appears to be to platoon Span and Pence. That suggests the tittilating possibility of two new outfielders coming to us via trade. Easier said than done but that’s no small tweak that’s a mini-overhaul.

Now that Sabean has inserted himself back into the fray, I’m willing to be hopeful and watch it all unfold.

RPAD Time. 11/15/13

Look at the crap we were voting on back then. Ugh. Hope Sabes does better than this:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2013/11/15/hot-stove-voting-time/

I’ve decided that no one is going to believe me about Billy Ham until they see him play with their own eyes. On base percentage only tells you how often they get on base it doesn’t tell you what they do when they get there. We have a bunch of guys who stand around waiting on first base like they’re at a fucking bus stop. They loiter, really. If first base was a 7-11 they would be the guys you see outside selling CD’s and watches. Billy Ham ain’t got no time for CD’s and watches. He’s peace out and see you at home plate.

But it’s really not worth the back and forth (again) about a guy who isn’t on our team.I hope Sabes trades for him so we can fire up some real excitement about the guy…..

As Xoot noted yesterday, today at 10am our old buddy Stix finds out his fate. Xoot’s post was one of the best Flap posts of all time, IMO. It had everything: information, Flap history, compassion, a link from his daily life to Flap life, common sense, everything.

I remember the links to Stix’s craft showcase pages. Looks like they’re dormant now. The only images I can find are buried in this local newsletter.
https://r2arts.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/july-august-2011-6.pdf

Stix owned an ancient deer rifle he never used until a Homeland Security helicopter buzzed his home three times one morning. I walk past Homeland Security cars and trucks every day on my way to my office (they park outside the old Custom House in downtown SF). The HS logo is faint. HS deliberately uses pale grey and pale slate blue and a weak font. No bold stars or colors or government warnings. The vehicles look like something a tasteful contractor would deploy,until you notice the cartoon eagle buried in the design. Apparently HS wants to be able to sneak up on people. The helicopter that buzzed Stix had the same faint and deliberately vague logo on it.

Stix’s fear of the US government was not his only fear and his fears are not all irrational. Stix is not reducible to the caricature of a dim middle-brow reification. Condemn him for shooting his rifle if you choose to. I understand that view. But don’t deny him his complexity and intelligence.

Stix is scheduled to appear in court at 10 am Minnesota time, tomorrow, for sentencing. I’ll see what I can find on line afterward.

RPAD Time.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2016/11/14/stacking-the-bullpen/

While the 49ers were celebrating their first victory of the season, The New York Daily News wasn’t really feelin’ it. He looks like Jim Tomsula’s brother:

Niners beat a team that, outside of Eli Manning, really wasn’t even trying. I haven’t seen a professional team mail in a game like that in a long time. But a W is a W and they managed to avoid 0-16. How weird is it that the SF Giants flirt with 100 losses and the Niners barely skirt away from 0-16? Not a good season in The Bay.

But the difference between the Niners and the NY Giants, obviously, is that one team has some hope and is headed in the right direction and one team has….well, just re-read the cover of The Daily News again…..

RPAD Time:

11/13/10

San Diggity photographs Sabean, candidly. There are a couple of FANTASTIC Stix posts near the end of the thread including a conspiracy theory about Pat Tillman.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2010/11/13/carlos-pena/

I have no idea if this guy will be any good. Nobody does. But he’s 23 and he’s created a buzz because he can hit and pitch. It doesn’t make any sense to have him do both. This is the major leagues, not little league. If he has the talent to succeed at this level he should pick whatever he’s best at and focus on that. Does anyone think Madison Bumgarner would hit .300 with 30 dongs if he DH’d every day? No chance.

Otani is a nice story and I would be ecstatic if the Giants signed him because we have a team full of shitty players and Otani has a chance to be a good player.

But he’s either a pitcher or a hitter. He’s not both.

RPAD Time. 11/12/12. Lol, if only I could have seen into the future 5 years, glanced at what the Giants gave Melancon, and raced back in time to edit this RPAD…

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/11/12/affeldt-signs-for-gulp-3-years18-million/

First, thanks to Xoot for the time he puts forth to gather and disseminate the Stix info.

Second, go Cardinal…..

Third, Stanton?

The only reason I’m bringing it up is because it’s November 11th and five years from now I might need a RPAD for this day. Rumor mill has churned out the Red Sox, Cardinals, Giants and Phillies as contenders for him. All 4 of those teams could take on his salary so being able to do so is not leverage. I’d guess the Phillies are out because Miami isn’t going to trade him to a team in their division. The Giants don’t have any prospects to send the Marlins so that disqualifies them. That leaves Boston and St. Louis. And I bet the Cardinals want him more. So that’s where I bet he ends up.

RPAD time…..this one is from 11/11/16. After reading it again I felt like saying “RIP Stix” because that’s basically what’s happened to him.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2016/11/11/steering-clear-of-the-fools/

Here’s an interview from the other day with the refreshingly honest Brian Sabean at mlb.com:

http://m.giants.mlb.com/news/article/260828316/giants-set-wish-list-for-hot-stove-season/

Answering some of his questions will prove to be more difficult. But at least he gets it: we need to focus on improving the offense, not just spending time on the outdated approach of defense and pitching and nothing else.

RPAD time. This one from 11/10/11 back when the Penn St. stuff was going down:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2011/11/10/reality-and-writing-and-baseball/

Forget JD Martinez at 200 million. If that happens, good luck to the GM who will have just ran his franchise into the ground. Turning our attention to the trade market, I was struck by just how many OF’s could be available via trade. In just one article about the A’s interest in Yelich and/or Ozuna, the names Grichuk, Piscotty, Avisal Garcia and Duvall popped up. While none of those guys are going to win a home run title, all should be available for a normal sum and all would be better than the barren wasteland that is the current landscape. And if those 6 guys are dangled in trades this Winter there must be at least a dozen more who, again, would be a huge upgrade over the replacement level of shit…..

Now to the RPAD. This one is from Nov 9th, 2012.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/11/09/who-are-the-five-worst-giants-hitters-that-you-remember/

The gold glove awards are out! All you need to know is that Tucker Barnhart beat out Posey and Yadi. And let’s move on to something more interesting…..

Today’s RPAD (from 2011). Check out the voting results.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2011/11/08/the-sanchez-for-melky-trade/

Heyward won a GG yesterday……more nonsense.

The one thing the Giants can’t do is go into next season with the same outfield plan. That means they absolutely have to sign a FA outfielder to pair with Span in LF and Pence in RF. Who do you think they should sign? We’ve heard about the underwhelming Carlos Gomez. A more exciting name is Lorenzo Cain. Is there something in between?

Retro Post Anniversary of the Day (RPAD):

https://oneflapdown77.com/2010/11/07/unwinding-from-an-amazing-season/

Lock him up. For a cool $12 mil. Of course, the team could exercise the buyout for $1.5 mil and then put the $10.5 mil savings towards the Mission Rock Development. That could pay for a lot of extra plants and shit.

Bum has made $33.5 million in his career, or $500,000 less than Grienke made in the 2017 season…..

Assuming they go with the option that now gives us a starting rotation of…..whatever, it’s the same guys.

The Giants need to start getting creative, real fast, with the position players.

Somewhere around the 5th inning last night I realized something: I didn’t care one whit about the Astros. I didn’t like or dislike any of their players. I didn’t care about the city, the state or the team. I didn’t care if they won or lost. I had zero emotional connection or investment to anything about them. All I cared about was that they would be the vehicle in which I would travel on the glorious journey to the (LA)nd of Pain and Destruction. Since about July, I staked me middling reputation on one constant: The Dodgers would not win the World Series this year. It was touch and go there for a bit but goddammit, on the last game of the season, I got my wish–middling rep in tact.

Anyway, what a weird 10 days. And 1988 was such a long time ago…..

Unless Hinch thought Verlander was done it was a huge mistake to take him out of the game. Either that, or he was banking on a Gattis bomb (unlikely). Once Reddick walked to lead off the top of the 7th the importance of getting the tying run into scoring position became critical. Bunt him over. Verlander could have easily accomplished this and stayed in the game. As it was, Gattis did worse than what Verlander could have done by giving himself up with a bunt out.

I’m tired of watching games get shitily managed. And now it looks like the one decent chance the Astros had of winning this thing is gone.

“Lance McCullers” looks and sounds a lot like “Livan Hernandez” if you squint and slur your words.

We’re fucked.