A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

If you can put aside the fact that a single A non-prospect handcuffed us for 5 innings, it’s nice to revel a little in the first win of the season. Scores like 3-2 are how we did it in the old days. Sadly, we won’t be able to do this enough times to avoid last place (guaranteed).

The Padres offense isn’t very good. If the Giants had to face a team like LA or Seattle, who have 26 combined homeruns this season (we have 1), we’d be getting waxed by 5+runs a game.

But hey, put one on the board.

We’re facing another pitcher I’ve never heard of today. “Chris Paddack”. At least we get to see how the team fares against a right hander.

There isn’t much to say about the start to this season. Utterly predictable. The Padres are now straight up trolling us by starting someone today named “Nick Margevicius”. He’s never started above A ball but he’s left handed and it now seems teams will just roll out any left handers they have anywhere in their system to beat us.

Only 160 more of these….

All you can eat Conner Joe:

Yesterday was pretty funny. No, not the game. That was excruciating. It was the post game show that had me ROTFLMAO.

As you all know, during the post game wrap our 4 broadcasters each give out their *player of the game* and the reason for it. When you get shutout, admittedly, finding a worthy POTG is a tough sled. When they got to the Big Kahuna, he stammered for a bit, and then nominated Conner Joe. Reason: he really liked how professional he looked in the walk that he got…..

His player of the game……walked one time.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was absolute solid gold.

Krukow was in fine nonsensical form in the post game spinning a bunch of bullshit about how they had been hitting all spring up until the last couple of games—saw the laid egg vs Brett Anderson as a precursor to what happened opening day.

Kuip is worried the same thing is going to happen today because they’re facing another lefty….like all these problems will get magically fixed as soon as the Giants start facing right handed pitching.

Even the most dulled down pessimist can get excited about today. The games count. The stats count. Maybe I’ll start trippin’ as the losses pile up, but for today I’m all in. Am I excited about the Giants specifically? Yes! I haven’t seen a second of them play in Arizona so it’ll be good to see them playing again. Baseball is back and that’s what does it for me. This sport flips the switch from Winter to Spring. And I’m in California where you can barely notice the change. I can’t imagine the dark cold nonsense you guys have to put up with in other parts of the country.

Someone once told me the future doesn’t exist so tomorrow never happens. I always thought that was some fucked up shit but maybe they were right. Celebrate today. There is only one of them.

If you need something external to get ya going, watch this:

Win or lose, this is our team. We roll deep till the end….

While I liked Alen Hanson for his surprise contributions last year and it was fun to see The Panda come back and be semi-productive, neither will be part of the new vision going forward. So, they go. Michael Reed and Conner Joe are the two best examples of what we should expect to see from Zaidi in the short term and, frankly, the long term, too. He’s always going to go after guys like that even after he start acquiring more legitimate major league talent.

Agree with James on the last thread, Smarge at 91 is not going to cut it. But they’ll run him out there till it becomes obvious. Tolbert was on KNBR yesterday discussing what needs to happen for the Giants to compete this year. He said we will have to lead the NL in ERA. It was a crude way of saying we can’t hit. But even weirder, I am just not seeing why everyone is saying this pitching staff is a strength. I mean, maybe for us it is OUR strength. But to consider them to realistically lead the NL in ERA is absurd.

Bum, D-Rod, Smarge, Suarez and Holland. Those 5? Even if our bullpen pitches to the strength they seem to be, can you see those 5 regularly cobbling together starts that contribute to leading the NL in ERA?

Baseball begins this Thursday and I, for one, am stoked. Have you seen the tourney’s offered at draftkings that day? Exciting! The video of the seagulls flying and shitting all over the stadium last night was pretty amazing to watch (Unca Chuck, 10:31pm). It seems like they were trying to send us a message but I couldn’t quite crack the code. lqtm.

At least we get to open against San Diego. They are better than we are but they still aren’t very good. Maybe we don’t get swept? Our first 7 games are on the road. That is absolutely stupid, no team should have 2 road series to start the season. Our home opener isn’t until April 5th.

Oh well, I’ll be positive and say that gives them some time to game plan for the sea gulls…..

Rolling back into town yesterday, I listened to the Giants get shut out by the underwhelming Brett Anderson. Zero runs. It was definitely great to hear baseball on the radio again but this is precursor to the 2019 season. Pffttttt…..

Anyway, DJ Loo is dominating. Here are the standings at Flavor Nation:

Another *under* under-the-radar move by Zaidi…..

March Madness is in full swing and a check of the Flap Standings after day 1 sees Hoodlum Pride and DJ Loo tied for the top spot….

As it should be….

Matt Joyce is the latest joke Zaidi is playing on us. I think Bozo is right, this dude was sent by the Dodgers to infiltrate our organization and bring it down. Prolly had something to do with setting off that kerfuffle between Larry and his screaming wife, too. 🙂

Still time to get in on the Madness. Up to 14 players competing for a new desk top computer! Lol, no that was Twin’s baby. Man, he used to run the show with giveaways. Good times.

We are playing for bragging rights as well glory and destiny……

Ok, I dove deep into my NCAA hoops research and I’ve reached the point where I create a group and it’s for Flavor Nation so if you want to play for bragging rights enter with this:

https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1/group/183694/invitation?key=3c1b5baf4fb75735&soc_trk=lnk

We were out of coffee creamer this morning and that’s a non-starter in mi casa so I drove down to Safeway at 5am. They had the pre-morning show guy on KNBR. He was running a long audio clip of Zaidi who was talking about the outfield situation. The Z man listed off 2 minor leaguers I’d never heard of as examples of “guys with strong minor league track records.” He went on to say “It’s no secret, we are trying to add thump to our line up. Guys with strong minor league track records are going to get a chance to do that.”

I’m not sure if there is a lamer way to kick off a Tuesday morning. First with the no coffee creamer fiasco, and then the Z man bumming me all the way out. That quote, by the way, puts a huge hole in the theory that he’s trying to build a “Cardinals team from the 80’s.” Here’s what sucks about Zaidi: He’s got no problem with a *throw away year*. Working for the A’s, they did that shit all the time. I’m not under any illusion that this team was going to be good this year. But to not even try to plug holes, even on the cheap, is infuriating. Signing an “Adam Jones” or a “Marwin Gonzalez” or shit even a “Matt Davidson”—doing that would have blocked absolutely nobody. But at least it would have given us a chance to finish better than last place.

Call me crazy but I think you should try to win every year. Not the way we’ve been doing it, not at the expense of saddling the team with huge future commitments (Longo) or refusing to give young players a legit chance (Duvall, Oaf, etc…). Just try to run a competitive team out there.

I have absolutely zero fucking interest in watching a bunch of *AAAA players with strong minor league records* fiddle-de-do through the season…..

Ok, let’s talk college hoops for a second. Just the #1’s. Gonzaga, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia. I’m gonna say Gonzaga and Virginia are the 2 vulnerable #1’s—caveat is that I haven’t begun even a moment of March Madness research yet and I haven’t watched a single college game this year from start to finish.

Ok go, how close did I get?

The good news: The Giants won, scored 10 runs and had 17 hits.

The bad news: none of those balls went over the wall.

It’s fun when you have a game with hits falling into gaps and good luck on your side. But when the luck runs out you need to be able to compete with the big boys. Three run bombs make their own luck, dig?

I nominate AWOT as the best nickname of the year, maybe ever. Good one, Loo.

March Madness time!

I have paid very little interest to college bball this year, mostly because the Cardinal have too many things stacked against them to ever compete again at the highest level of D1 hoops. Looking forward to filling out my brackets, though. I see that Yahoo has ditched that absurd perfect bracket thing and will be giving away 1 mil for the *best bracket*. Much easier. lqtm.

My #1 go-to play in years like this when I don’t pay attention is to check all the home/road splits of those who make it. There’s nothing like a home court advantage in college hoops and a lot of teams come in with inflated records only to lay huge eggs when they get away from their precious familiar surroundings……

Where’s everyone stand on this? I’ve gone back and forth. I see a lot more games being lost in the 7th and 8th inning. Guys are going to be lit up when they otherwise would get yanked. So maybe this leads to less extra inning games. It also probably means the end of the LOOGY. I don’t have a problem with less relievers per game. That’s appealing. I do have a problem with leaving a guy in there who obviously doesn’t have it that day to just lose the game for his team.

More Josh Hader/Andrew Miller types make the game better, not worse. So if that’s the outcome from all of this I guess I can get on board with this gimmicky rule change…..

I tried to be positive with my 160 bomb prediction yesterday but reality quickly set in. Who are we kidding? The only 160 we are going to see is the number of days Oaf, Longo and Belt spend on the DL this year.

Here are our bomb totals for the last 3 years:

2018: 133 (Yanks hit 267)

2017: 128 (Yanks hit 241)

2016: 130 (Baltimore hit 253)

2015: 136 (Toronto hit 232)

So going into this season with arguably our worst offense in years, I think 130 is a pipe dream, at least as the team is currently constructed.

Or maybe I nudge Bum’s total up to 60, two per game, and that gets us to the coveted #160

Last year, the Giants hit 133 home runs. NL league average was 179. Let’s see if we can somehow get them up to 160 this season. My predictions (based on nobody getting hurt or missing any games):

Mac 25, Longo 20, Belt 20. Those are our 3 crown jewels. Bank them for 65.

Buster: 10. Obviously I’m leaning lower than that but this thread is supposed to be positive so he gets to double digits somehow….

Crawford 10. Panik 5.

Dugger and Parra 10 total.

That gets us to 100.

Bench: …..uh….30

Bum…..he gonna have to chip in 30, too. One per start.

This will probably be my most positive thread of the pre-season so go easy with your critique…

So let’s just say we’re rolling out The Oaf, Duggs, and Parra. In theory you have some nice mix of power,  gold glove D and a solid, across-the-board skills guy in RF. I’d still rather have Jones out there because he’d be more consistent at the plate than Oaf and he’s got about a billion percent chance of injuring himself less. Same goes with Duggs, btw. He’s an under the radar injury waiting to happen. I’m not sold on Parra playing every day. To me, especially at this point in his career, he’s better off as a platoon guy. Play him every day and we are going to be watching a “rich man’s White Shark” out there…..

But the option instead of Oaf/Duggs/Parra are not even reasonable.

I know this is a throw-away season but that doesn’t mean they can’t at least try to be competitive to start the year. It’s not like Jones would have been blocking anyone. Not only are we finishing in last place in 2019 but we are going to go about it in the most boring way possible…

I pity the season ticket holders that have to go sleep through this shit….

Pretty irritating take from mlbtraderumors.com about why the Giants didn’t sign Adam Jones:

“The Giants were a logical suitor for Jones given their unsettled outfield, and San Francisco ended up landing a number of veteran outfielders (Gerardo Parra, Cameron Maybin, Craig Gentry) to minor league contracts, rather than give Jones a guaranteed Major League deal.  Given the timing, it seems like the Giants decided to move on from Jones rather than wait to see if his price dropped.”

He signed for 3 million. For a year. To be clear, I don’t really care about not getting Jones. He’s ok. He would have been a poor man’s McCutchen. But this outfield situation is just a joke. How can a team with a monster payroll go into a season with this shit? We’d be better off with Barry in his recliner and 2 other guys wheelin’ it big in the outer outfield…

Lol, that was a great commercial.

Today, the Giants are going up against this phenom for the A’s, Jesus Luzardo. Some amazing left hander who throws the shit out of the ball. I realized what’s been bothering me about this Spring Training. We have no phenoms. Nothing even remotely hopeful is happening or might be happening. We’re *hoping* that Longo has a bounce back year? We’re excited that Beede is throwing hard? God, this is all so boring.

Where is our Jesus Luzardo?

Here were Daniel’s questions and my responses. Cynical, yes. Accurate reflection of my mood for this season? Spot on.

I finally sent in my responses to Daniel’s questions for his “Playing Pepper” series. I delayed it as long as I could. I waited for Z to do something. Nothing happened. In fact, things just got worse with Baer and Maybin tag teaming the franchise into embarrassment.

I’ll repost his thread here when it goes public.

Giants got killed 12-5 yesterday. Bum looks to chip away at his 15.75 ERA today.

What an idiot, right? You’re at the end of your career, you start off spring training 0-16, and your plan to re-start your career is to get hammered on “big glasses” of Chardonnay. Oh well, another door opens up for a kid. Or does this nudge Z into signing Adam Jones?

All I know is that Maybin’s arrest is putting a serious crimp on stocking the team full of speedy “Cardinals from the 80’s” types….

Here’s the thing about Baer: Be around, don’t be around, it won’t affect the team one single fuck. He’s just a face, an advertisement, something to trot out there for fans to see and for KNBR to interview. He makes zero decisions, outside of the decisions he votes on like all the other owners.

From that standpoint he’s completely expendable and not worth all the time we’re spending on him.

So later days, happy trails, enjoy the Autumn moon lighting your way. We have other more pressing issues to sort out…..

I’ve been listening to a lot more 95.7 The Game lately. KNBR has fired everyone and become nearly un-listen-to-able. Turns out a lot of the fired hosts are now at 95.7. Not having to listen to Gary Radnich’s voice is reason enough to make the switch.

They had a caller yesterday who was adamant that we weren’t just going to finish in last place but we don’t even have anyone who can hit a ball hard consistently. He was very negative but very right. We have no power, everyone knows that. But we don’t even hit the ball hard. Dribblers. Pop ups. Soft contact…..

That has to be something Z addresses once he ignites “Operation Trade Flurry”…..

I tried to re-focus on the baseball side of the game and noticed we played the Rangers to a 0-0 tie yesterday. Hunter Pence stole a bag against his old club. The Rangers used 8 pitchers to blank us. I had heard of one of them (the starter, Minor).

D-Rod goes today…

Some additional thoughts on The Incident:

1. It’s probably safe to assume this has happened to them before. What would have happened if it hadn’t been public, if the cameras hadn’t been rolling? Baer tries a “Pam, stop” at the end of it before walking away. That’s loosely translated to “Oh, fuck.” He also looked like he had a “Dumb bitch” shake of the head near the end, too…
2. I think Baer is a fucking tool for going after his phone like that. And I have no problem with his squeaky clean image being sullied, he could use some shit getting thrown his way.
3. I just didn’t like that people were acting like this was a Rice/Mixon/Hunt situation. An old lady fell off her chair.
4. If Baer gets removed from his position because of the optics of this, I’m fine with that.

Whew! What a ride. But the Harper fantasy is now over. We can get back to rooting for Maybin and Solarte. The Giants o/u win total this year is 73.5. They won 73 last season. Think the “Mays-arte” power combo gets them over the hump? I actually think the Giants win 73 easily this season…..As long as not a single player gets hurt. Actually if nobody gets hurt I bet they win 82 or so.

What are the chances that nobody gets hurt?