There Is No Joy At Oracle
I’ve reached that stage of grief in the season where I try to figure out the mlb fan bases who have it worse than us—-the fan bases who have the worst time watching baseball right now. Right off the bat, you gotta look at the 3 beauties and get a big time bounce from them. As bad as we’ve been for half a decade, we still have those to fall back on.
But still, we’re terrible and watching these games is a grind.
In the NL there are 2 teams with worse records than SF–the Marlins and the Nats. But the Nats have a better run diff than we do (-38 v -51). The team with the closest run diff to us is Pitt (-50) but they’re 2 games over .500 and are probably more fun to watch on a day to day basis.
In the AL the Tigers have a worse record than we do AND a much worse run diff (-93). They’ve been getting killed regularly since they started out hot to begin the season. I still watch the daily Angry Tiger Fan videos and he’s at his wits end, lqtm.
Baltimore has a worse record and the worst run diff (-107)–just following both teams (Detroit and Baltimore) from a fantasy perspective, I still play more guys from those teams in daily fantasy than I do the Giants—that translates into some interest in those teams, at least for me.
Pitching duels are dumb if you’re losing most of them. I guess we don’t really even engage in those much anymore, anyway.
If you like power, we’re ranked 27th in bombs, OPS 28th, sb’s 22nd (our crown jewel of offensive achievement) and for all the Flappers who beat off to walks we are ranked 25th. Grim all the way around.
I’d probably say Tiger and Marlin fan bases are the 2 that have it worse than we do, at least when it comes to being forced to watch our shit teams play day in and day out.
Agree? Disagree?
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
The Orioles are on a pace to give up something like 340 homers…
I would love to somehow get Trey Mancini on our team but you are right they are horrendous top to bottom
Still reeling from Kat’s “Flav’s 1.0 Reward System” diss. Dawg, “I been in a lab with a pen and a pad” developing that shit. Put some respect on the name (Fwar). Lqtm
Shea had column couple weeks ago re: attendance, noting Giants dropoff. Even with all the bombs being hit nowadays, fewer fans are showing up to watch ML baseball. Last night 150 runs scored/52 (!) bombs hit in 15 games. So maybe at some point there is a backlash and the ball gets readjusted.
Giants problem is not the contract $$, it’s too many average to below average players, position and otherwise. Z will have to come up with 5 starting position players and couple rotation guys; since pen guys are most valuable on the team couple of those are likely dealt off soon too. Shea talked about Acuna the other day too, a guy who has power and can play the OF, fun to watch. Zero Giants like that, and of course OF drafts a gigantic wasteland going back long time.
Bart and Ramos hopefully account for 2. Maybe Anderson and Suarez account for 2 more, DRod and Moronta improve and get back to more like last season. And they get couple more out of this year’s draft.
dropoff has nothing to do with the bombs. It has to do with how much it now costs to go to a game, how accessible watching games on tv now is, and how boring the game has gotten with all the standing around and striking out. There are probably other factors but those are the main 3 according to me.
OAF: 4-39
Jesus Christ, give the fuck up already.
If he was on the Dodgers he’d be batting .394 with 7 HRS…
For the Springfield Isotopes. Or the Albuquerque Aliens. Whatever the fuck the Dogs’ AAA team is.
Ladies and Gents, the Orioles fans have it worse than us. Hey, Halloween might want to change it’s colors this year.
How about that Bryan Reynolds? He was part of the Cutch trade and is now hitting over .300 playing OF for the Pirates. Only 3 HRs and 9 RBIs in his 80 ABs but hey.
And for Zum, he has a 1.0 WAR so far this year.
Reynolds is looking good so far.
yeah, I meant to include the Orioles. You and Loo set me straight.
The guys involved in the botched DP last night were Crawford and Longo not some call up kids. Miller on radio said normally whomever is playing SS (Craw I believe in this case) who takes the throw. Neither moved then they both did. Smardz looked and saw no one at 2b, so instead of inning ending DP it blew up in their faces. Isn’t it normal for SP to check with IF with hand signal before a pitch is thrown?
I had to run an errand and that was last I heard, 1-0 2 runners on. I come back and turn on radio and it’s 6-0.
Braves night before were lamenting the 9th inning 2 out Sando PH roller to normal SS position that couldn’t be fielded in time to get him out at 1b because they’d shifted on him. You see this all the time too—if the D is playing a LH hitter to pull, then why is the pitcher throwing the ball on outer half and away from the D?
Willie, the contract $$$ is definitely the problem. Those guys are going to play, period. Until those deals are done or in the final year of completion, they are playing….
Fleming was lamenting that last night after the game. Kuiper pointed out there there’s no more ‘double play depth’ anymore. Krukow was pissed about it. The Giants couldn’t turn a DP that the pitcher Fried hit right at Solano at 2nd.
The thing about the Giants is they flirt with playing well and then just completely ass-fuck a game like last night’s. Had I been a paying custoemr I would have asked for my money back.
The onerous contracts guarantee glacial movement of players. Seven bad deals that have 2.5 years to expire. At least.
Crawford really is the one who is just burnt toast. His fall from grace has been precipitous.
The Marlins swept a 3-game series last weekend, vs. the Mets, something the Giants haven’t done yet this season.
Yeah, that botched DP ball back to Smarj is inexcusable bad baseball. At least one out should have been gotten, and that would have saved the inning. Smarj, Longo, and Craw all botched that. It makes you wonder how mentally focused they are sometimes on a losing team. Then the loss of focus causes more losses, and it’s a vicious cycle downward.
A check of the Adam Jones WAR ticker shows him down to 0.1. He’s had a rough week so far.
Giants and O’s play at Camden Yards next weekend in the Who’s Got It Worse Series!
Nah, the giants have the money to pay the players. If they can offer Harper $30 mil to add to the existing payroll and Stanton before that, it’s not the money. tickets sold (unlike butts in seats) is still 30 thou a game way better than lot of teams. What I saw they are way under lux tax this season.
Sure it makes it more difficult to trade them elsewhere but if they were playing better then you wouldn’t need to do that and they would bring back more anyway. Pirates kicked SF back $$ last year in Cutch deal and so did the Yankees so SF could stay under lux tax. Are any Giants OF even as good as Cutch was last year? No.
I can live with Belt Posey Duggar. Underpaid Bum will get traded, Cueto is due to come back. smrdz and Melancon, the other higher paid guys, aren’t what is killing SF (and could be dealt giving back some $$)–it’s the other 3 IF spots, SP and the OF, Fwar leader notwithstanding. They don’t have enough power or OB and limited speed from vets or younger players at these positions on field. Bottom line none of players in these positions are hitting well enough to be ML starters–result is Giants don’t score enough runs and starting pitching is rarely good enough to contain other teams.
That’s just basic little league stuff the Giants butchered on the comebacker.A left-handed hitter up the SS covers,a right-handed hitter the 2nd basemen covers it’s just that simple unless it’s the Giants..Are if they really all want to be on page right, Shark looks back to both of them and says who’s covering 2nd and one of the other will nod are tap their chest..
I used to pitch for a softball team full of drunks. Our SS was sober and in AA. Whenever there was a man on first and a lefty batter coming up, he would get my attention before the next pitch and point to himself to let me know he was covering on the force. Sometimes he would say “you & me” just to make sure it sunk in…
OK look at these numbers:
As recently as 2016 Longo hit 36 bombs 98 rbis playing in freaking Tampa, .521 slugging .840 OPS. 3 times earlier in his career he had hit 30 + bombs for them. Now, it’s half that and OPS is off 100 points. TB does kick in $2 mil off $14 mil and will continue to do so for rest of deal.
Craw in 2015 hit 21 bombs, and 15 and 16 drove in 84 runs each season with .780 and .770 OPS. He was 5 WAR player, now he’s half that and bombs rbis OPS off the charts low.
Panik in 2017 (2 yrs ago!) hit 10 bombs 28 doubles 5 triples with .768 OPS and .288 BA. Where is that player?
Not long ago these were all productive hitters and solid defensively. If they were hitting like that now no one would give rats ass what they were making and Giants would be hella more competitive.
Teams rarely, if ever, take infield anymore during the season, right? Anyway, defense lapse last night, but defense is least of the Giants problems in this new brand of ball. Teams come in and hit the hell outta the ball, Giants can’t. I heard this morning that the HR count at AAA leagues so far this year is double last year. Double. Oh, this season they started using the MLB ball…
Just watched the fateful play, yeah, what a monumental fuck-up. But then, this is what bad teams do.
As you all know, the Giants had the NL RBI leader for 3 straight seasons (89-90-91)
Different guy each time. Bet that’s never happened…
Yanks 1925-27.
Damn!
Ruth, Gehrig, and ???
Mitchell, Clark and Williams?
Yes, but I screwed up.
It was actually (88-89-90) (Clark-Mitchell-Williams)
Bochy rolling with the club’s FWAR leaders – going for the win today and series split.
2B Joe Panik L
CF S. Duggar L
C Buster Posey R
1B Brandon Belt L
3B E. Longoria R
RF Kevin Pillar R
LF M. Williamson R
SS D. Solano R
P M. Bumgarner R
No Bum batting 8th nonsense.
I use a Solano hair dryer – made in Italy.
Con-Airs are for rookies…
I’m sure the hair is flowing as always. lulz
One of the great wasted seasons in SF Giants history was 2018. Now that D-Rod is back in the minors, it’s hard to see what was accomplished last year. And Bryan Reynolds, traded for McCutcheon, may turn out to be a legit major leaguer for Pittsburgh.
Trading the All Knowing Nunie for Anderson may turn out to be the one bright light. And I hope D-Rod makes it back. He was the best story of last season.
Reynolds hit a 3-run pinch-hit HR today vs. Rox.
D’oh!!
Here’s one I have to look up. Reading the story on Porzingis threatening to leave Knicks if he wasn’t traded, a blogger made the claim that 46 of 54 NBA titles have been won by top 2 seeds. In ’60s there were far fewer teams and playoffs only went 3 rounds I think, but still interesting to look at once ABA teams/expansion to 14 teams plus happened.
His point was how unlike other major sports this is, where wild cards have won it all more often and how rare it is for even 3 seeds to do so in NBA.
As to bombs and baseball, it’s not that it is causing lowered attendance so much as the fact that juiced ball hasn’t seemed to offset the decline. Game was supposed to be more exciting/fan friendly, yet attendance gets lower every season despite record number of bombs hit each year.
And obviously that most teams are “doomed” before opening tip of season.
Like someone posted a while ago, something like 90% of ABs are walks, K’s, or home runs.
Last year there were over 10,000 fewer balls in play than in 2017. This is a staggering number.
Makes for boring shit. Strategic baseball (steals, hit-and-runs, even bunting) are a thing of the past. It is all about the bombs.
What if a team just didn’t go along and played by the old rules?
Could they still succeed if the talent was good enough?
i don’t see why not…
2014 World Series between SF & KC was a match-up of two teams more or less playing old school styles.
Not all teams are all-in on home runs, but it certainly is leaning that way.
So I guess Dave Kingman turned out to be the prototype for today’s players.
Mike Schmidt once mocked him saying that he swings like he’s trying to hit the ball up an elevator shaft…
Hah! A man ahead of his time.
An oldie but a goodie. Hundley’s in it as well
Two out scoring.
Austin with a bomb setting up a trip to the GSR in Reno for some random Giants fan.
Including tokens for the Aqua Range!
Baseball needs more action than just HRs and Ks to keep fans coming to the ballparks…
Crap.
Get those runs back, Giants.
Mac takes the mistakes and swings at the shits.
Just notice Kevin Pillar is leading Giants in many offensive stats. Another example of our robust farm system- -right! Also noticed Pence hit #10 yesterday- -sigh.
Jesus. At what point do they finally bat Posey 7th? He’s doing nothing. 6 RBIs this month.
Fuuuuuuuck suuuuuuuuck blehhhhhhhh
Williamson with 4 Ks. Yikes.
4 for 43.
Please make it stop…
yeah. Enough, I’d support bringing up that grand kid of Yaz’ if it got rid of Mac.
Twins have hit 8 home runs today. Imagine what it would be like if we had guys on the team who could hit home runs?????
Almost Flavor-worthy?
djloo27 said, on May 11, 2019 at 8:57 am (Edit)
Not to pick on him, but MTO has begun a minor o-fer (10).
I couldn’t tell you if he’s hit the ball hard since his great comeback game.
Just don’t want to see it turn into the old 3 for 32 crap…
Who remembers this Luke Jackson?
Or this one?
Posey. Sucks.
Oaf gets one more AB in the bottom of the 13th.
Anything less than a solid hit should end his Giant career…
Way to go down swinging, Longo.
Longo looks at 3 strikes!
Kruk makes excuses for him…
That should put the final nail in his coffin. No more Oaf.
Pillar should have stolen second during the oaf at bat and this Solano one that is currently dying.
“so-long-o” to that fucking guy too
Loo, in my youth in the ’60s, I watched a lot of Sixer games mainly because we lived against a hillside in NJ that hindered getting NY TV. Luke Jackson I remember had a shaved head, is that the same guy? Fun team to watch back then: Jackson, Chet Walker, Greer, Wally Jones, Cunningham. Interesting that the lesbian band Luscious Jackson is named after him….
And their insane PA guy was a hoot…
In Connie Hawkins’ book he tells of the time him and his high school buddies were laughing at some white kid at the far end of a Brooklyn playground. The kid’s dad was making him practice lay-ups – 100 with each hand – over and over. The kid was Billy Cunningham…
Zinkoff!
Yes maybe my fav b-ball team of all time. Big Luke actually had decent outside J too. So glad when Wilt finally won one.
As I remember too, Wilt gave lot of credit to Matt Guokas, local kid from St. Joe’s.
Just saw Luscious in Sanoma a couple weeks ago. Great show.
Moronta gave up the game winner on an 0-2 pitch. But, it wasn’t a “hit me”, it was pretty low, even outta the zone probably. He got too much of the plate, though, with it, and that’s no bueno on the 0-2…
Hey, I’d give MTO a hundred ABs, seriously. What’s the downside — he’s blocking somebody as yet unknown that ZMan will pick up on waivers?…
He is lost. It can only get worse.
He ineptitude defies the law of averages.
He is the worst baseball player in history…
lol. THE WORST. Well, Snarkk makes a decent point about giving him a hundy but really those at bats should be going to Austin.
With the juiced ball in use today, Bonds in his prime would probably hit 90 HRs. Or, the oppo would just walk him every AB…
Bucks bandwagon getting a little leaky.
The front of the Raptors uni says North? Are they owned by Kardashians?
Dubs can beat Toronto easily. The Bucks would be more challenging. I really don’t care who they play but I’d probably prefer Milw cause they offer far more interesting story lines and actual play. Toronto is mostly Leonard and a supporting cast.
Whitaker had a memorable HR tear when he first came up with the Yanks…
Each playoff team Warriors have faced so far had better guards than Lowry and Toronto and GS out played every single one of them.
Raps can go big, with M Gasol Siakam and Ibaka, but none of them tough to guard are 1 on 1 guys. Gasol mostly hangs around perimeter these days, so smaller player like Iguodala can guard him out there. Powell isn’t flashy guy either.
Don’t see how their guards keep up.
Will they play O Canada before the game like NHL does?