A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Yesterday was a good day, I pushed the Tampa Bay game and won the other 3 in dominant blowouts. A last second field goal in Florida prevented a day of perfection. With Zaidi committed to doing nothing this off season let’s keep the gambling train rolling down the tracks with….what’s this? The Cardinal? Oh my.

I don’t know a single thing about Pittsburgh except what I’ve read about them which isn’t a lot. They have a couple of bruiser running backs. Stanford will be without Bryce Love although it has felt like they’ve been without him all year.

I’m intrigued by this match up. David Shaw, who sucks, is ok at game prepping if you give him this much time. His bowl record of 4-3 should be better but he has a couple of Rose Bowl wins sprinkled in there and that’s probably what keeps the alumni from shit canning him.

Shaw would rather blow another man’s load in his own face than blow out an opponent. Stanford giving 4 points just screams to take Pittsburgh. If I were betting, which I’m not, that’s the route I’d go.

______________________________

I’ve been trying to figure this ad from the 70’s out for the last hour. What are they selling here? And did Namath slather this stuff on to woo the ladies or was he saying he doesn’t but you should? I don’t get it.

NFL picks

Let’s keep the *good times* rolling with some NFL winners.

I’ll take the Chiefs to smash the Raiders—14 is a lot to give but Oakland had their super bowl last week in the Coliseum finale so I expect a huge let down game for them today in the toughest stadium for a visitor in the league.

NE -13.5. Repeat after me, “The Patriots win and cover at home. The Patriots win and cover at home…”

Tampa Bay +2. This is the type of meaningless game they usually win outright….

Buffalo -5. Miami in the snow? I’ll take Buffalo.

Those are my top 4 bets of the day. They might not cover but they fill up a new thread nicely….

Ok, enough with all the doom and gloom. Who’s everyone got in these college bowls?

Nevada -1

Florida +5

Alabama -13.5

ND +11.5

Now if you play opposite those 4 picks you’ll probably make some cash :).

There are few things that separate men and boys more drastically than dudes who get their families together for this stuff and send it out vs what I do which is not any of this. Thanks Diggity, great looking fam you got there….

I read Pawlie’s tribute to his mother several times last night. It was simply beautiful. Sad, but beautiful. My dad is 83. I talked to him on Christmas, he sounds strong. But these words are a reminder that nobody and nothing lasts forever.

You can read the entire entry here:

https://thelaughorist.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-first-last-christmas.html

If you’re too lazy to click on the link just read this:

“Well, I’m going to go, Mom. Do you want me to take you to your room to lie down or do you want to stay out here?” “I’ll stay here.” I kissed her on the cheek and then again on the forehead. “I love you, Mom. Merry Christmas.” “Merry Christmas. Thanks for coming, for always coming.” “You’re welcome. Why wouldn’t I? Glad to do it.” Our eyes locked. I walked down the hall, but not before waving to her and she to me, as if we were in the departure lounge at a bus station or airport.

After the nap, I headed, solo, to Ethan’s house, at 5:20. I felt but tried to ignore a low-grade hum of loneliness, sadness, and dreaded what-if-ness, not about Mom but about me and my journey thus far and today in particular. I feared a low-grade hum turning into a full-blast bass note. Approaching my son’s house, I felt the evening darkness descend, the cold air blanket downward. This could be the last Christmas for any of us. Who are we to say? Who could be so cavalier or breezy to say otherwise? Sure, I’ll be the oldest there, but we know what can happen in the blink of an eye, rudely disrespectful of age or station. And if a year later, we were absent, any one of us, or more, we would give the world to have this back again, pay any price, sell our souls and honor, anything, just this one time.

The shimmering snow crystals in the frozen, star-specked moonlight on the lawns to the left of the sidewalk. The town’s bright holiday lights twinkling up ahead to the right. The patter of my footsteps. The strands of ice on the steps leading to the door. My hand on the railing. The barking dogs. The glass panes in the front door clouded over, frosty, from the condensation and warmth inside.”

_________________________________________

PK holding his mom’s hand on Christmas…..

Still can’t believe how lame the Warriors looked last night. This dude on twitter nailed it, I can’t argue against this in the slightest except his spelling mistake.

Last year the same stuff happened, they got lost and complacent. The NBA season is so long, it’s probably hard to get these dudes motivated for anything but the playoffs. Still, as fans we watch all these games and they just aren’t worth moving your day/night around to watch anymore….

Not like the Giants, my entire world is set nightly to revolve around them. Lqtm….

Maybe there’s no presents under our tree because Zaidi celebrates Festivus?

Oh whatever, he’ll do what needs to be done in the time he takes to do it…

Christmas was always a great day at the Flap to share holiday recipes. Stix and Twin usually led out with those posts……

Here’s a retro post from Christmas past…

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/12/24/have-a-merry-giants-christmas/

Man, I still feel so shitty about what happened to those kids. It happens all the time now. If you want to track gun violence in our country this is a comprehensive, up to date data base:

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/query/0484b316-f676-44bc-97ed-ecefeabae077

Say a prayer for the people who don’t get to celebrate Christmas today.

Anyway, have a good one.

Woke up wondering about using *beginners* or whatever a bullpen game is called. Is that really where the game is going? Would Bochy be able to handle something like this? As it stands, our starting 5 is Bum, D-Rod, Suarez and then it gets dicey. Smarge? Stratton? Underwhelming is the most optimistic word I can think of to describe our *Five Fives*.

There are obviously serious question marks about our rotation. I, for one, definitely see the appeal of going with a bunch of *beginners* as the core of your “rotation”. I’m tired of hoping and praying that these bedraggled middling talent starters some how cobble together a wobbly 6 innings of work. Bochy always lets them go an inning too long anyway. Getting rid of them and going with nothing but stud relievers has some appeal.

Clearly switching to that approach would upend things as we know it and I do think Bochy’s head would explode trying to manage that every game.

Thoughts?

Gotta say, I’m pretty impressed with the A’s for going out and getting Profar. Ditching Lowrie the season after he becomes an all star is the right play. He’s 34 with a big time injury history. Get rid of him. Sabean would have signed him to a 5 year deal.

I’m ready for Zaidi to start doing something like the A’s are doing.

Also, why doesn’t this headline at mlbtraderumors.com say “Giants” instead of “Dodgers”?

Interesting take about Will Smith and Tony Watson by Alex Pavlovic: With Miller now signed, Zaidi will look at trade interest for “Will-Wat”. But again, what would those guys be worth right now? Just like Bumgarner, they will be worth more at the deadline if they produce in the first half of the season. Obviously a solid offer would make trading either of them an easy decision….

Question of the Day: What do you expect out of Mac Williamson this year? He’s out of options and there are like 12 open outfield spots in our rotation. If healthy and hitting well in ST he’s got a job. Is there a scenario out there where you see him hitting 30 home runs this year? How about 30 home runs in his career?

With Billy Ham and now Matt Harvey off the board, the Giants are running out of Flap-favorites to sign. This Tulo thing, man, everyone keeps saying “hey it’s no risk since we only pay him the minimum” but if he produces like a *minimum* player what is the point? I guess I’d rather see him out there over Panik although Panik would be better defensively.

Tulo has hated the Giants since he was a kid, I can’t imagine he’d sign with us unless there were literally zero other suitors…..

Henry Schulman, who seems about the least connected beat writer out there, seems to think the Giants might trade for Puig. I’m going to pretend this is just a bad dream I had last night.

Surprisingly, SF and LA have only consummated 3 trades together in their history (out west). I thought it was more than that but I can’t really think of any others so let’s go with this list:

Ok, so besides like 2 of you (Loo and San Diggity Dawg) who else supports the idea of acquiring this prema donna shithead overrated fuckface?

So just wait till Boogie starts playing!! Lol, man, I don’t know what’s wrong with the Warriors. I think it’s reasonable to assume they just don’t care much about the regular season anymore but that’s a dangerous tact to take. This is not the same team of the last couple of years though, not even close….

Franny, who sucks, was trying to sell this take on KNBR last night: Because teams don’t let players practice as much in the off season as in the past, the Niners are JUST NOW coalescing as a team and that’s why they beat Denver (and he gave them a shot to beat Seattle). Uh Franny, wouldn’t that same amount of practice time apply to ALL the teams? Why were most other teams not a 2 win team going into Week 14? All the practice they’ve done this year just finally kicked in? It was the dumbest, simplest take I’ve heard from a KNBR host recently and that’s saying something with Radnich still employed there….

Zaidi is doing nothing. There aren’t even any good rumors to dig into….

Last season in a cold March contest the Kings were +450 to beat the Warriors. Me and San Dawg were in the throes of March Madness but made time to target that game as a must-play. That night the Dubs started Quinn Cook, Nick Young, Draymond, Iggy and Zaza. And yet the Kings were +450? We bet both lungs and the mortgage on the Kings and then celebrated like 2 Kings after the deed was done (lots of quality Tenacious D references in that last sentence).

Tonight ain’t going down like that. We got Steph, Klay, Green, Durant, Looney and Trotter coaching ’em from the bench (Let it Ride reference, boom).

I don’t know what’s going on with Oakland (I never call them Golden State) right now and the Kings are significantly better this year than the team they trotted out to an upset win last March. And tonight Sacramento is still an underdog at +300.

Even with the game in their house, it’s time for the Warriors to get back to doing what they do: smash teams like the Kings…..

Another thread for no reason. But I wanna keep things fresh around here just in case something happens.

Zaidi whatcha got?

We could have offered Cutch the QO. We should have done that. Most on here grossly underestimated his value on the open market.

________________

Raising hand here, representing the group that “grossly underestimated his value on the open market.” To catch up from the end of the last thread, had we kept Cutch and not traded him we could have offered him the QO which, I think, was 18 million. I scoffed big time at that idea suggesting 1 year/8 mil was probably all he could hope to get on the open market.

‘Cutch should be dancing in the streets right now making it rain on himself because he would not have gotten 3 years/53 mil if the Phillies would also have had to surrender a draft pick. And while what he got beat the projected deal of 3 years/40 million (mlbtraderumors) even the projected deal was far greater than my 1 year/8 mil guess….

Hey, stop worrying guys, we got…..quickly pausing to check spelling on these dudes names…..Juan De Paula and…..checking again….Abiatal…..checking a third time…..Avelino for him!

In the end we’ll never know if we would have been stuck with ‘Cutch had we given him the QO. Probably not. But by not offering it to him he got the deal of a lifetime, I don’t think there’s any question he got more than many thought he would get. And many millions more than I guessed…..

Interesting to see the Giants tried to trade StrickIdiot somewhere, anywhere, before they just let him go. Were they too proud to accept some minor league stiff or did they literally not get offered anything for him? Another damning example of how our players are not valued even the slightest by other teams.

Very excited to see if the news of Belt getting traded goes anywhere. Unlike Strickland who has zero value there are apparently teams interested in Belt. It would shock me if anyone offered anything decent for a guy owed so much who is one beaning away from retirement.

Tuesday is waking up in Vegas. Will anything happen at these Winter Meetings?

My expectations were low but now I’m starting to rev myself up a bit. If you’re Zaidi why not make a splash this week?

Larry Krueger, KNBR morning host who carries the show for Gary Radnich who knows nothing about sports, put this out there yesterday:

Frazier’s not enough of a difference maker for me to pull the trigger on this deal and I highly doubt you also get a “live minor league arm” in the deal he proposes.

I chose to believe that Zaidi is looking at our outfielders and just shaking his head at the ineptitude it took to cobble together that group of dunderheads. He will be targeting this area of the team for an upgrade. Let’s see if anything happens this week…..

I went back and forth on the topic of today’s thread. It was going to be Kieran Loveglove or whatever his name is. But I decided to give a shout out to Jose Castillo. Like all of you, when I heard the name I thought “wait, didn’t he play for us?” Part of it is his general sounding name. Part of it is that so many players put on that SF uni. I remember 2008 opening day quite well. We shouted loudly about how lame our opening day line up was. The Dodgers shut us down 5-0. Remember these guys? “Brian BigCock” nickname was born that day…..

Anyway, he was a forgettable player with a forgettable name playing in a forgettable era. There were only a few references to Castillo here at the Flap over the years. This one from WillieD is about as good of a eulogy as I can find:

RIP to Jose Castillo. We may not remember your contributions but you were one of the many steps this team has taken in its walk across the earth. And because of that I can say “thank you for being part of our journey”.

And now be on with yours…..

Schoop gone, he signed with the Twins. Royals probably signing Billy Ham. Not sure if this off season could get more boring for a Giants fan. Winter meetings coming up but nothing seems to happen at those anymore except a lot of steaks get devoured and the strippers get rained on a little harder.

I really don’t care what Zaidi does. His pulsating brain is bigger and grander than I could ever hope to understand. All I know is that I couldn’t be more tired of every single player on our team. Individually they put you to sleep, collectively they lose regularly.

I guess this is the price we paid for winning 3 in 5.

I have no idea if Yusei Kikuchi is a good pitcher. I don’t even how to pronounce his name. But I want him on the team. The international flavor of our team sucks. Zaidi knows this and his big brain has probably already spanned the globe computing different ways to add and subtract from the team.

Rebuilding doesn’t mean we can’t have fun doing it. Go get this lefty if you can.

So the Dodgers are now IN on the Bryce Harper sweepstakes. I’d personally be fine with that. Saddle a 300 million dollar deal that will come up woefully short of paying off for them? Hell yeah.

Harper is going to sink whatever franchise he signs with. He’s got a nice beard and great hair–his two most important possessions.

Until that guy figures out how to deal with the shift he’s going to be nothing but an on again, off again power hitter. Machado is a better all around player, they should have just tried to keep him.

As he ages, I could see him having a Matt Stairs type of ending to his career….

Lemme get this straight: The Mets take on 67 million more in salary, they get an aging second baseman who is painfully average without his steroids, they lose a bunch of prospects AND it turns out Diaz pitches with a bone spur in his elbow? LOL are you SERIOUS? Ask Matt Cain about how bone spurs are no big deal and you can just pitch around them.

Nobody seems to be talking about what an incredibly stupid trade this was….

Who’s gonna get waxed harder today, Niners or Raiders?

I say they both lose 30-3.

Loo, you were on fire last night. Reminded me of some of the old days, thanks for that. The only thing missing was Twin intercepting you with some zingers….

Regarding your Chiefs, how about this analogy: Steph is Maholmes. Klay is Hunt. Durant is Hill. Draymond is Kelce. Ok, this is already a stupid analogy….But what if it’s close, could the Warrior still win it all if they lost Klay? Personally, I think they could. The only can’t-lose piece is Steph (Maholmes).

And look at Loo, out all night dreaming up drinking challenges with his local bartender and he answers the bell first thing this morning with another post:

At the moment the Giants have 4 outfielders on the 40 man roster.
Duggar – Slater – Mac – Shaw
I think I’m done with sports…”

Three guys got non-tendered that I would look seriously at and I hope Zaidi picks up all of them: Avasail Garcia, Jon Schoop, and my main man B-Ham. If we get all three of those studs I bet you pick sports up, dust her off and ride Sally ride till the sun sets. Am I right?

The Big Game, finally, is today. It’s raining like a whore right now at Casa de Flavor but I expect it to be dry by game time. Snarkk, I trust our bet is intact and that the tree will remain unsoiled until at least after I’ve had time to avert my eyes…..