Parra?
You wanted Harper? Well, you got Parra. Another weak hitting lefty who might as well be nicknamed The White Shark Season 2.
I mean, is Parra really better than the kids we were planning on running out there? Eh, maybe.
Is he gonna block anyone? Eh, maybe.
Basically we probably just need to lock down into hibernation for a few years. The only way out of the wilderness is *that’away* >>>>>>>>
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
ghostrobot comment on MLBTR story re: Giants sign Trevor Gott who had been DFA’d by Nats:
“Farhan is gonna need a tetanus shot for all this dumpster diving.”
from U of Kentucky and unrelated to Jim Gott, Phils pitching coach and a pretty good hitter in his day.
Wow the wiki story on T Gott’s time with Nats has some ugly stuff in it on some of his appearances for them.
Zaidi’s actions are pretty much what he did with the Dodgers. People know about Turner, Taylor, and Muncy; but those guys were found by the Dodgers by an almost countless amount of signing and discarding of players. I’d include Andrew Toles as a find by the Dodgers, also.
Taylor was via trade, I think, but the point still holds, IMO.
There are dozens of decent free agents that will be continually lowering their price over the next few weeks, like Moustakis did last year. No one is rushing to sign those guys right now. It’ll be interesting to see what they sign for.
Let’s just LOL at that Melancon 4 years/$48 million signing again. That’s like something out of an 1890s war strategy book. We signed a cavalry horseman while the enemy was inventing machine-guns.
Up until this season, the Giants were diligent in trying to put the best team on the field, albeit, in the last few years, the product was obviously stale/old, not performing to expectations, and too expensive. Now, the Giants are embracing the application of statistical analysis to baseball records, especially in order to evaluate and compare the performance of individual player (i.e., sabermetrics).
However, at the same time, why aren’t they culling the bad contracts (e.g., Melancon, Longoria, etc.) like other teams such as the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers do, so they can compete sooner versus embracing “wilderness” seasons? I don’t know the exact answer, but I do think that Posey, Yelich, and especially Verlander are making good points about teams refusing to compete – either subtly (Giants, Cubs) or overtly (see Marlins).
Verlander makes some very pointed, excellent comments about the owners not spending their wealth on players or at least, lowering ticket, food/beverage, and parking prices to reflect their actual payroll spending, where it is obvious, that the team is tanking. My point is that this is going to lead to a strike where everyone suffers, especially the fans. It’s crazy.
https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/justin_verlander_rips_broken_mlb_free_agency/s1_127_28413965?mb_edition=20190212
Verlander makes good points, except he’s wrong if he thinks a GM can count on an age 26-36 window for a player. It was true for Verlander, but I don’t blame GMs for not counting on that.
Yes Zum, that paradigm of thinking is similar to what you said about “. . . something out of an 1890s war strategy book. We signed a cavalry horseman while the enemy was inventing machine-guns.” Very few players have careers like Verlander, unless they’re taking PEDs.
I’m hoping the contract deep6 is going to be his next move (once it’s clear he can’t move these big contract guys)
Me too.
Regarding the Giants on releasing players with big contracts, it’s something the ownership group is very averse to doing, historically. I’m guessing Baer made that clear to Zaidi in the job interview, and Zaidi had to be willing to accept that as part of the deal.
In the next collective bargaining negotiations, the older players will have to be sort of sacrificed. The emphasis will be on a quicker path to free agency for the young players, and tweaking arbitration to increase salaries of younger players. Maybe add in increased pension money for retired players to appease older players.
Zum, are you still at 15% on Harper signing or does this lower your percentage?
https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/bryce_harper_reportedly_has_no_interest_in_signing_short_term_deal/s1_127_28420169?mb_edition=20190213
I’m dialing back to 5%. Surging up to 15% was fun for a few days.
I’ve noticed the slow free agent off-season has altered the MLB Network Hot Stove show. They’re doing more general interest stories now, like charity work players are doing. It feels like more of a general off-season show now.
Looking at some all-time records lists, this is the first time I noticed the full extent of what Barry Bonds getting black-balled did to his stats. He was pretty close to getting 3,000 hits, and he was just a few RBIs short of 2,000, a number that only a handful of players in MLB history reached.
This year may be not too good for wins, but it will be way more interesting than the last two+ seasons of crap ball. ZMan is going to spin this roster around all season to see what he’s got and doesn’t. Bochy’s big head is going to spin. Before, a big move was where Gorkys was going to bat in the order from day to day. No more. I’m looking forward to it…
Harper back to Nats
Actually that is from Heyman I haven’t confirmed that a there else
I like Zman’s pickup of that Lopez kid off the wavier wire.Kid has good potential and only 25 atleast add extra depth at AAA and could get a call up if injuries kick in.
And dumping Oshit was the right move to go by the Zman too!!
He can dump Okrap as well!!
We were overdue to bring back a hydrant Parra fits the bill..
Look, Longoria’s contract is awful, I know. But should he be a candidate for simply being dropped from the roster like the Bosox did to Pablo? Hell no, IMO. First off, one of the reasons Boston has done that is that they are flush with talent and usually have someone to plug in. We don’t have anyone to take Longo’s place. Plus, I think he is far from done as a player, and like I have said many times, I think he will put together a nice year for us. The numbers won’t be great, but no one can put up great numbers in our park until it is redesigned.
As for Melancon. Lets see what he does this year. If he is the worst guy in our bullpen and can be easily replaced, then sure, cut him loose. I think he’s gonna be alright as well.
And the Hundley snub pisses me off. Played well for us last year. Has a good swing for our park. Universally loved in the clubhouse and could be had for cheap. But Frahad thinks we are better off with Rene Rivera. Stupid, tone deaf move in my opinion.
And there are about 10 guys I would have taken ahead of Parra—and all of ’em swing right handed.
Parra que?
Parra the course?
completely agree with that take, San Dawg. I am actually calling for a bounce back year from Longo. He knows the league, he’s gotta be more comfortable, he’s healthy. He’s not going to blast 30 bombs but I think 20 is legitimately in play. And the Parra signing is dumb. It’s just another left handed hitter with no pop. Disappointed in Zaidi for this move. 100% agree with the Hundley call. I’ll go find what Buster tweeted about him hold on….
seems to me we coulda found a place for this dude….
I’ve been one of the biggest Buster supporters on the Flap over the years, and I’m still a huge Buster fan, but maybe Buster needs his cage rattled a bit this season, so to speak. The whole team needs a huge wake-up call this season. There’s not going to be much sentimentality with Zaidi. The SABR-folks are not sentimental about things.
I like that Buster is speaking up a bit. I think he has earned his place to put in his two cents. I don’t blame him at all for not wanting him to be on a team mailing it in for his last few productive years while they rebuild the farm system.
Doris Burke reminds me of a teacher every kid dreaded.
No fun and lotsa homework…
DB does it for me. I’m kind of a fan of the look and the broadcasting skills.
So far Zaidi seems to be taking the “throw shit against the wall” approach…
Good to see first pics and video from Scottsdale. Baseball is back, even if our SF Giants don’t seem to be fully locked and loaded yet. Joey Bart catching Bum, nice. Agree about Posey speaking up about stuff and I’m guessing he might do more of that this year, act like a real team captain. Had to chuckle, though, when asked about Melancon, Bochy said he looks good and is “getting over a hump”. Man, that’s been one…. long… high… hump….
Or maybe dry hump….
After the first few appearances where Melancon gets smoked in ST, what are they going to do? They’ve got a ton of arms available. Do they release a guy that’s owed $28MM over these next two seasons? They won’t if he limps along and has an up and down performance outcome. If he just gets shelled constantly, they have a decision to make. ZMan has no personal investment in this dude, he will not let Bochy just trot Melancon out there in the 8th again to get hammered over and over in real games. Melancon, if he had Osich’s contract, would already be long gone…
A bunch of us here have hoped Z could unload (or, failing that, just dump) some of these killer contracts. A good few Flappers seem to think Longo will be fine this year, and while that’s one contract I’d love to see dumped, maybe he will indeed “bounce back”. Considering Longo, Smarge and Melancon, Longo would appear to have the bigger possible upside. Melancon, on the other hand, I would think would be an easy one to just dump if it appears he ain’t ever gonna have it. Maybe he too will “bounce back” but I doubt it. That’s a lot of bouncing we’re counting on…
Cal up by 4 at home vs.UCLA with under 2 minutes left, looking for first league W.
And give up back to back 3s, trail by 2 with 1:09 left. Earlier they had been up by 9 and allowed UCLA to retake lead.
I would like to hear the Giants veterans talk more about winning being the most important thing. I’m all for that. As in, Posey saying he’ll play wherever he’s needed to help the team win, if that means catching a lot less. Instead of Bum and Smarj ridiculing the “opener” concept, how about them talking about doing whatever is needed to help the team win more games? Instead I hear them carving out their turf.
I’m a big believer in clubhouse chemistry being important; but a team has to be careful about getting so comfortable the clubhouse becomes a country-club. This whole Giants organization is like Mick in the Rocky movie needing to help Rocky get back the eye of the tiger.
Bill Walsh could be very unsentimental in reloading 49er teams to keep the dynasty going. We loved all those players Walsh said goodbye to. It was a hard thing, but the dynasty kept reloading.
Solid Post Zumie!!
Glad I’m not the only one that thought not keeping Hundley a mistake. Minor league for a backup catcher with 10 homers and a class act in the clubhouse? Lame
And why is Smarj even talking? He sucks. He really should just quietly take his money and try real hard to suck a little less this season.
Hundley had a 0.0 WAR last season. In sabermetric terms, he was, for lack of a better word, worthless.
Hundley was also one of the worse framer of pitches at -13.2!!
Hundley is probably pissed off with stats like that I’m sure he’s feeling he was “framed” in these obscure stats..
Yeah, Zaidi was looking at those stats and his age, and said “pass.”
Smarj had a -0.7 WAR last season. He actually achieved being less than worthless.
Some good news- Heart is touring again. The band went into hiatus for a few years because Ann and Nancy had a falling out over a confrontation between Ann’s husband and Nancy’s sons. Good to hear things seem to be better now, to some extent.
I think the opener stuff is dumb and more made for the younger guys where Giants want to hold the innings down . the A’s won 93 games last year but went 4-5 when they did it.in regular season and they got bounced out of playoffs when they tried it again. Like Bum says, did Red Sox do it last year?
No issues with an SP saying I’d rather try to start the game and go as long as I can.
Posey is the C and I think he has a right to that spot. Until someone tells him to move I think this is what is best for the team. I don’t think he has ever complained about playing 1b. But the Giants have a GG 1b already on the team in Belt. When Bart is ready to play ML baseball, OK. But as long as Posey is healthy and can handle the position as well as he has in the past then that’s where he should be.
It’ll depend on how fast Bart moves through the minors. It could take a couple of years, anyway.
Cal hit a 3 in last minute to force OT and then fell apart. They didn’t score for first couple minutes, got down 4 then drew a shooting foul and missed both FTs, UCLA hit FTs down the stretch.
Like in Anna Karenina, all losing teams lose in their own way. Cal has now won 2 league games in 2 yrs, and of course 0-12 this year, in a season where the league is flat awful. As announcer Don McLean said they play hard and gave great effort but don’t shoot (23-68 at home) or rebound (43-31 deficit tonite) well enough to overcome mistakes.