Ace of Spades
I wanted to see who else was struggling to find a true *opening day* starter for Thurs. Here are the teams in the same boat as us (and Ty Blach).
Miami: Jose Urena
Detroit: Jordan Zimmerman
Oakland: Kendall Graveman
Cinn: Homer Bailey
Chicago: James Shields(!)
LA Angels: Undecided
Blach is a gamer, he was lights out vs LA in a critical game in 2016. I think he pitched a shutout. He’s got some Kirk Reuter in him so who knows, it’s baseball, let’s see what happens.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
just looked at the end of the last thread, Z posted an article ranking all of the OD starters. Looked like I nailed the bottom of this list free handed and cold.
Well done!
yeah, that is impressive, Flavor. So is your basic optimism. Let the new LU play some games before we doom out. Also, won’t it be sort of fun, in a chip on the shoulder way, to root for underdog Blach on opening day?
I’m definitely not off my 80 wins, but so much shit’s happening I now don’t see much value in an opening day prediction for this year. Play the games.
Bob Nightengale tweet:
“For the first time in 16 years, Dusty Baker is returning to the #SFGiants. The Giants are expected to announce today at their luncheon that Baker will be a special advisor to Larry Baer while also reporting to executive VP Brian Sabean. A fabulous reunion.”
“Special advisor” is a nice gig.
Does he get an actual office? Does Righetti have an office?
I picture it being like that episode in Cheers when Sam is hired by a company to be on their softball team, and he’s given an office, and just sits in a chair wondering what to do during the day.
that’s fine. I actually hope he’s around the guys a lot (like Will Clark). As long as Dusty isn’t making any on-field decisions he’s a great influence on the players.
How about Fosse yesterday calling out the Giants for their treatment of Righetti.
And later Glen Kuiper said the Giants are a “pretty good organization.”
Oh, damned with faint praise, as Shakespeare said.
Fosse and Kuiper have to broadcast A’s games, though, so we have some pity for them.
Blach did make 24 starts last year. Had a rough time on the road tho. ERA was 5.55 vs. 4.17 at home. Batters hit .298 off him on road with .500 slugging and .860 OPS. In 17 fewer innings he gave up 7 more HRs (12/5).
Maybe he learned something/C Young can help him pitch better away from ATT…starting soon.
Couldn’t stand Rueter, your classic nibbler.
Also not down with starting this guy on Opening Day. Make Opie outduel your best. Rest of Dodger rotation was still pretty tough last year and one of tops in baseball.
One of these years, the Giants will score a bunch of runs off Kershaw in a game. One of these years…..
Have to go back and look at game log, but you’d think this year LU would be lot better than last year.
How about just concede our lefty bats can’t hit Kershaw, and sit Belt and Craw on opening day?
Jackson
McCutchen
Posey
Longoria
Pence
Hundley
Tomlinson
Panik
Blach
Can’t see Bochy doing it, though. That would be too untraditional.
Go back and look at, I think 2007, the one with Brian Bigcock starting od
I think I heard on radio last week that rueter has more wins than bum.
Reuter has a higher winning percentage in a hundred more starts.
He’s also a savvy poker player and gamesman. The two are related IMO, if Blach has his career, the Giants will be well served.
At least there should be a few good Tiger rants.
They’re supposed to be horrific…
I’m kinda off that dude. Following him on twitter every day, he’s just ok. He wants to be known for more than just rants and he tries to do a lot of mlb analysis videos. He needs to go back to his roots and go insane again.
Good kharma bringing Dusty back…
If the thread is a Lemmy ref, kudos Flav!
Say what you will about Reuter, but if Dusty starts him in game 7 instead of Livan vs the Angels, I think it’s a different outcome.
Reuter was +.500 for 7 straight seasons. Nothing too bad about that. His era was a bit high, but he pitched in the height of the steroid era, so a lot of folks had high era’s.
I’d take his nibbling any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Smarglebargle should be so good.
Spot on. Plus, he did it with that body. lulz. Seriously, Woody was a good player and from what I’ve read, a better teammate.
Nibblers can be effective, but they can be tough to watch.
Vogey was kind of a nibbler, and he could be tough to watch at times.
Tom Glavine basically nibbled all the way to the Hall of Fame, but the umps helped him along the way. That’s the thing: a nibbler has to have helpful umps along the way.
Blach’s probably not going to get much help from the ump on Thursday. Yet Kershaw will magically get a huge strikezone, and he doesn’t even really need it.
Blach still has to win over umps. Hit the glove well, a few inches off the plate.
Weren’t the Gyros supposed to have stud starters in the wings? Blackburn, Beede, Suarez? Since 2010 with Bum up, it’s been hype, then crickets. Blackburn traded off, so he wasn’t that good. Time for these guys to step up or be revealed for pretenders. Who are the next hyped starters down below them, or are there any?…
They drafted Vanderbilt guys but they missed Walker Beuhler from that program, who the Dodgers nabbed. That guy has young Lincecum-esque stuff.
He had a TJ surgery which scared a lot of teams off.
The Dodgers also found a reliever on the scrap heap who pitched great in ST…..JT Chargoit.
I’m starting to think the Dodger front office is pretty good.
We’re all still very grateful the Astros pulled off the World Series victory last year. 🙂
Yes, the saving grace to the Giants atrocious season last year. So glad Rooster is still at dinner.
Last night’s Dodgers/Angels game was a good look at the Dodgers’ bullpen.
Maeda went 5 innings, and then it was Chargoit, Alexander, Fields, and Jansen. I don’t remember the order they came in. They also have Cingrani, who’s good. Baez can be iffy. And Font got lit up in ST. I don’t know what they see in him. They have Stripling if they want to go with eight relievers. He’s just OK.
Some of those relievers had failures during the World Series, fortunately. Jansen even blew a save.
Giants have the worst or one of the worst minor league operations in MLB. That isn’t easily corrected. This is why I didn’t want them to give up Arroyo for Longoria, i.e., trading one of their best prospects for a 32-year-old third baseman owed $83 million and coming off his worst season. However, they made their bed, so now we see what’s what going forward.
Personally, if the Giants are out of it by the trade deadline, they need to begin the process of trading whatever pieces are performing at a good level for prospects. If you recall, the Astros didn’t have a fire sale to get rid of all their high-priced talent. The fire came to them. lulz . . .They were still pretending to be contenders as late as 2010, when they finally gave up and traded Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt for far less than they could have got before the season started. I see that possibly happening to the Giants too, since they obviously decided to “reload” and forgo a rebuild process. Again, it doesn’t matter now.
Why has the SF farm us ten been so hit and miss? Any ideas blade? They’ve drafted pitchers constantly sine Bum came up yet nobody ready to step in for the two starter spots now open by injury. Stratton and Blach are OK, but not 1, 2, or 3 material. Finally Duggar looks like an OFer from the system, but he doesn’t look like a world beater in the box. Infield is good from within, but the infield is not the whole squad…
None. The only thing I would offer is that we have those 3 beauties in the trophy case and that didn’t just happen because of trades or signing free agents. In fact, at one point – we had the most home grown team in MLB or very close to most home grown. Just my take, but that begun to crumble (Karma?) when we jettisoned Duffy for Moore.
Without bum for half a season and SmarHRzzz out at least April, this Pen will be taxed early. Come August if SF is still within hailing distance, the Pen will likely be on fumes, so probably need a at least another arm to acquire before deadline. If FO wasn’t so tied to stay under spend cap, they could make a move or two now…
Just some bad drafting the last several years after several years of good drafting. Probably a lot of the same decision-makers, but it’s like they brushed up against William Macy in the movie The Cooler. The big cool-down.
Ramos does look promising, though.
And maybe David Bell gets things back on track.
To be fair, drafting is a tough thing.
Everybody passed on Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger in the first round. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.
And, of course, we got Cain, Lincecum, Posey, and Bumgarner because other teams passed on them.
It turns out there were good reasons why other teams passed on Gary Brown. 🙂
Since Sabean got promoted in 97 the Giants have done well when they had top ten picks. When Quinn was in charge (92-97), not so much. This year is the first top ten pick in a while, iirc
Parker just got DFA-ed.
Are Blanco and Gorkys the backup outfielders? Is Duggar back to AAA?
I thought he got DFAd three days ago?…
Parker
Parker (who sucks)???
Groan. A Bay Bridge trophy. Everybody just groan.
As if the “Bay Bridge series” is actually a thing.
the last time I attended a series game in Oakland (2012) it was a big thing for the Oakland fans. On the other hand, I’ll always remember how politely the Oakland ballpark staff were as they welcomed the huge number of us wearing Giants hats into the park
well, you know what I meant
Giants game is on NBC BA and the MLB Network on delay, I think.
Loo– I know you don’t check your email very often but I got your gift in the mail today and I was absolutely blown away. I can’t believe you thought of this or went ahead and sent it to me. Thank you. I still can’t believe you did this. I’ll post a pic in tomorrow’s thread to show everyone.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRROpEuYPr0ykFoPnp3U7mxva-tEqpFZjIH3GLswZ_HsbcfH0a8
Wonder if KNBR reads this blog or Flavor knows who’ll be on. A very funny interview with Kirk Reuter on Tolbert today, he thinks the comparison with Blach is valid.
He’s already clinched his NCAA basketball suicide pool.
Holland has served up a couple of taters.
Cutch, Posey and Longoria all got blown away by FBs up at various times tonight
Watching Giabts v A’s in Phoenix at a Texas Roadhouse steak place. At the bar they got 3 out of 6 TVs playing the game, including the big screen. Not bad. Giants are bid down here. Is Cutch wearing high top cleats– has he always done that ?…
Suarez’ stuff looked pretty mundane that inning…
Who was that #84 that came in and pitched like crappola?
The Angels held the Launch Angle Dodgers to a solo HR, and won 4-1.
The Launch Angle Dodgers. I haven’t seen that anywhere. I should copyright it. Nah, I’m not motivated enough. I give it to the world for free.