Tough Road Trip Over
As the bottom of the 6th ended, Krukow confidently stated, “a four run deficit is nothing to these guys.”
So I decided to screenshot the batting average of “these guys” the moment he said that…..
And, shockingly, that four run deficit didn’t budge and they lost by….four runs.
It’s weird, I do like our hitters better this year. But the Bore Core still haunts every inning. And while we all love the youngsters like Dubon, well, he’s hitting .205. Although that’s nearly double Pence so Doobie probably struts a second longer when he passes Pence’s locker……
3-7 on that roadie. That’s actually about the ceiling of my expectations….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Yeah, this team just doesn’t have the horses. And I did not expect them to compete. I think it is time to switch gears and focus on evaluating young talent vs. trying to win/get in the playoffs.
My guess was three wins on this roadie, and optimistically four. About what I expected.
But I do like the way this team battles. Kap just needs to learn how to manage a big league pitching staff (uh, well, maybe we don’t have one), and also how to effectively fill-out a line-up card. Belt in the four hole again last night? PFFFTTT…
Great post by SDawg at the end of yesterday’s thread. This season is a joke and I am losing interest very quickly. Hell I haven’t even played a DK lineup in over a week.
I am really ticked off about the 3 Trump conferences that want to continue ahead with a college football season. It’s utter bullshit. I would be totally fine just watching my Longhorns scrimmage each other every week during the fall with no fans in the stands. And you can’t play a college season in the spring and then again in the fall. Utter nonsense.
why can’t you play a short season in the spring and then re-start again for a full season in the fall?
no Flav you can’t do that to the athletes, 2 football seasons in one calendar year. I think the myocardial (sp) issue is very real, especially for all the large linemen a team will have on 80 man roster. They don’t at this point know enough about it to ensure safety of athletes.
Having Pence, Craw, Belt, and Longo in there all the time just makes for boring baseball. It really is pathetic that our FO Won’t let em go because having them play is just as bad as eating the money we are paying em. Time for a Total Rebuild.
the thing is, NOW is the time to scrap them. We have no fans in the stands, that was the ONLY reason to keep Belt and the rest of the Bore around. Rip the band aid off NOW and then by next year we’re at least a year ahead in the rebuild because of what we did this season. Makes no sense at all to me that they keep playing these guys who are clearly completely done at the plate….
Does this apply to the situation?
What Is a Sunk Cost?
A sunk cost refers to money that has already been spent and which cannot be recovered. In business, the axiom that one has to “spend money to make money” is reflected in the phenomenon of the sunk cost. A sunk cost differs from future costs that a business may face, such as decisions about inventory purchase costs or product pricing. Sunk costs are excluded from future business decisions because the cost will remain the same regardless of the outcome of a decision.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
1) Sunk costs are those which have already been incurred and which are unrecoverable.
2) In business, sunk costs are typically not included in consideration when making future decisions, as they are seen as irrelevant to current and future budgetary concerns.
3) Sunk costs are in contrast to relevant costs, which are future costs that have yet to be incurred.
Because this organization is the only one in baseball that doesn’t dump useless players and they won’t eat contracts!Sadly too much loyalty over the years has sabotaged the process of rebuilding effectively.
Sure as hell looks appropriate for our current team, Loo.
Last day of a 10-game road trip with no days off, two of their best hitters out, and facing a tough pitcher all combined for a blah game. Yeah, three wins was pretty much what we all expected. Good to see Yaz, who had two 0-fers in Houston, get the bat going again.
Greinke cruised last night, as everyone not named Yaz barely did anything at plate. Yes he did get Belt with that 88 mph fastball, but he got others too.
Bottom line as Flav said few days ago there isn’t enough hitting to overcome crummy pitching. 8-12/3-7 road trip this is the team Z/H put together and the one Kapler has to manage.
Having watched them so far, is their any idea his inexperienced “analytic driven” coaching staff has done one whit of good or can help the hitters catchers fielders pitchers be any better?
What proof have we ever had that one MLB coaching staff or another has improved a majority or even a noticeable minority of players beyond what they’d do based on the players’ innate skills and experience? FWIW, Yaz apparently has the brains and ability to listen and respond to the analytics.
Never realized maybe because they’re is no fan noise that Grienke grunts like he needs a bowel movement after every pitch.Similar to women tennis players with their shrieking sounds..
Loo that’s interesting take on sunk costs. In biz I was in, owners often bought product that didn’t move and because of what they had paid for it (due usually within 90 days) were reluctant to discount it. After items sat on sales floor, my take was hey I’ll take what I can get for it and make customer an offer they can’t refuse.
My argument—no one is buying it so it’s not worth what you want for it. A loss is better than $0.
This is where Giants blew it by not sending $$ back to move their outdated/overpriced players. You could have waived all the guys we know are useless and taken whatever offer they got if someone claimed them. Alternative is you keep them and continue to suck, which is where they are now and next year if no new approach happens.
Maybe another 40 games will convince Kapler and he can make enough noise upstairs.
I had ’em down for 2-8 on that roadie. So, a surprise they took one on each set.
They’re searching for consistent pitching. Likely they’ll search all “season”.
The big contracts are killing the lineup. Rodriguez gets called up and volunteers that Bart is amazing in Sac. Good to know…
Shocking that the Bore Core went 1-12 with a walk. It really drags down the little thrill there is from this season. And Kapler makes is worse by batting these guys up in the lineup.
Sunk costs = sunk team.
Game 20 yesterday–one-third of the season. Day off today. Time for ALL the Brass to re-evaluate. If, by some unaccountable miracle, a staffer’s duties include sniffing around for fan sentiments; they sure the hell should know how the Flappers feel–DUMP THE DEAD WOOD.
Cool, djloo. Graphics are spot-on.
Any reason besides lack of thinking the Giants don’t add Jaylin Davis/ shit maybe even Chris Shaw’s last stand?to the roster when u know Slater will be out for awhile and Barrels tummy isn’t right! There down 2 of there best batters,is it written in stone that Belt&Pence have to be in they’re everyday??
Another stiff now is Darrin Ruf, just the new version of Austin Tyler from last year! Giants like these big country boys hoping they can hit a baseball a country mile, but seldom do and eventually get cut..
It was a topic of discussion here years ago with TF, but the order of the line up doesn’t make that much difference to your team’s total run production, to the extent it does make a difference, bat your best hitter in the number 2 slot etc.
Gabe Kapler knows this.
I’ve never really cared much about the batting order. We need better hitters not a better batting order. Take a look at where the Twins bat Byron Buxton–usually 9th, almost always in the bottom 3rd of the order. His OPS last year was .827, this year it’s .944…..
Bottom of the order under the DH system, effectually gives you two lead-off men during much of the game. Buxton could become Minnesota’s version of Ricky H.—minus the mass of SBs.
It’s easy to rag on underperforming core guys who aren’t doing much.
However—Dickerson on road trip went 7-27 with bomb in Colorado. all the other hits were singles, and yes one of those drove in a run yesterday after Yaz triple. Still, in 48 ABs he has 4 XBHs, way less than I would have hoped. SF has home games coming up so let’s see if closed archways make a difference.
Ruf, the guy who hit all those HRs in Korea, is doing same thing. He has decent BA but only 1 XBH in 27 at bats. Idea was he could provide RH power and fill in at DH and 1b. Belt and Pence have more HRs, not good.
Dubon at bottom of order is hitting .200 and also has HR though he’s doesn’t appear to be power guy, He also has 1 BB in 47 PAs and very low OB. He has to be able to at least get on base more often to help. I’d love to see him play every day but hope he can figure out how to be more productive.
Making Kruk’s comment “a 4 run deficit is nothing to these guys” that much more absurd.
The Giants’ owners are what they are. It’s their team. They don’t dig team brass eating big contracts. That gets brass fired. I’m sure when Baer was interviewing Zaidi he told him “If you dump a big contract, I can’t protect you.” Message received.
The Giants ownership group just isn’t one of those ownership groups that burns deeply with baseball passion, IMO. To them, the Giants are a piece in the corporate holdings. Sure, the owners dig when the team is winning championships, but the owners get just as thrilled building new condos.
Here’s where the Green Bay Packers model needs to be implemented in MLB. FUCK the big money boys and take up the Wisconsin concept where the fans pledge money contractually in some form of escrow account or something similar. When the accumulation hits and surpasses the team-valuation accounting figure, call in those chits and do a friendly (as against hostile) takeover and tell the owners to invest their funds elsewhere.
The team did eat Cozart’s $13 mil in December just to get Wee Willie Wilson.
I seriously doubt that Zaidi has the leeway to dump a contract. That rests with the ownership group, I am sure (it is their money).
4-6 was the best hope for this trip and could have pulled one more in CO but we are reverting back to the bottom of the heap in the NL and that is really where we should be. I was impressed by Gausman the other night so what can we get for him. Smardj trade is not happening and holding out they can get a solid top-tier pitching prospect for Cueto and this should demonstrate to Farhan the obvious that the BeltCrawfordPence trio has to go before next season and any desperate need for a 3b can entice another playoff caliber team to make a move to get Longoria…
The problem is that the GMs of previous eras are the ones that could be duped into taking on a bad contract. The new GMs are really hard to dupe in that way. Sabean/Evans taking on the Longoria contract was kind of like a last gasp of that era.
As Flav pointed out recently, no GM in his right mind is going to trade a mid-level prospect, let alone a top prospect, to chase a sham World Series title in a season that might not even make it to completion.
When the Giants were winning championships last decade, it was easy not to worry about the terrible drafting the Giants were doing last decade. The decade before that, Sabean had done some great drafting that put the Giants on a championship course, and huge credit goes to Sabean; but last decade he and Evans had many years of terrible drafting that ended up crushing the team. In addition to the bad Bore Core contracts, it really was a worst case scenario. The rebuild is going to take time.
should the rebuild get going, it will be led by the guys Sabes drafted—Bart Luciano Ramos Toribio and some of the pitchers. Not excusing the mistakes, but Sabes guys are among SF top prospects and closest to MLB.
The real Sabean/Evans failures were in the long-term contracts they dealt out after the Giants began winning. Taking on Longoria’s interminable contract absurdly added to the dead weight. Meanwhile, however, Panik (2011), Ramos (2017) and Bart (2018) were all Sabean/Evans first-round picks. (Of course, I’m glad Evans is gone.)
Webb is Sabes guy too drafted 2014.
Slater was 8th round pick out of Stanford 2014. so far at least very pleasant surprise.
interesting corollary to Longo trade: Rays by end of deal 2022 will have sent back $13 mil to SF. this is pretty frugal organization that also took on Span’s $10 mil deal and iirc paid into it when they traded him to Mariners.
Don’t you all think the Cardinals should just call it a season? They haven’t played a game since July 31, are ravaged with COVID 19 among they’re players and coaches, just makes no sense for this team to try and continue.
I can’t believe I didn’t take a selfie with Sabean when I ran into him on the Streets of San Francisco just a few days after the Giants had won the 2010 World Series. I just took a picture of him. What a dork.
the expression on Sabes face in that pic suggests he was barely cool with the quick pic. He mighta slugged you had you asked for a selfie.
Hey! That’s MY phone!!!”
Scuffle ensues. I think you’d fare better than Mrs. Baer, Dog!
Assault!!
I wanted to hug the guy I was on such a high. This was literally like 2 days after the parade.
Like many of us, I worried I’d die without ever seeing the Giants win a title.
I have a picture somewhere of a friend and me with Chris Berman and Larry the Lush in front of MoMo’s. Place was deserted. Of course, now it’s a gold mine.
Was the final series at The Stick, and we had gone down to check-out Pac Bell Park. They even bought us a round.
Two years ago, when I saw Evans and Tidrow sitting right across the aisle from me during batting practice, I didn’t want to talk to them. No other early fan watching bp did either. Evans was doomed and he looked it.
The comparisons between the Sabes/Zaidi regimes seem to assume that we should look for radical long term differences in the overall quality of the players being drafted and the levels of success they enjoy. This ignores a few obvious realities. The shift from old school to analytics doesn’t create new sets of players to choose from, and by now pretty much every team has made that transition. The advantages of using new approaches to evaluating talent are marginal, but you’d be irrational to give the rest of the competition that edge over you.
The chief reason I’m glad Sabes and his style of management are forever behind us is because he valued qualities in players that don’t have shit to do with winning. That obviously didn’t preclude fielding a winning team and it also doesn’t mean that he somehow lost his eye for talent, or that given another 20 years he couldn’t have had another WS winner or two. It just means his luck took an inevitable turn for the worse.
In addition to everything else about 2020, the Calif. Central Valley will be going through a record-breaking heat wave for a bunch of days in a row. Giants baseball in Sacramento is going to have to do their workouts in the morning. I can’t see them working out in the brutal afternoons or evenings during this heat.
The next week in Sac-town:
Today: 103
Friday: 109
Sat. 108
Sun. 107
Mon. 109
Tue. 110
Wed. 108
Th. 104
It would really be a good thing if the nations of the world started getting serious about dealing with climate change.
Are those temps or Pence’s batting average?
That’s the bore core
Keith Law from afterword of “Smart Baseball”: “By Opening Day 2017, all thirty teams had full-time analytic departments, and the debate was no longer whether to use data-you have to because everyone else is-but how much of it to use.”
He talks about 2017 post season being “…second in a row where an emphasis on analytics seemed to pay off for clubs that made strong commitments to using stats as a core part of their decision-making process.”
Teams mentioned here were Tribe Cubs (with Theo who helped build Boston champs) Dodgers and Astros.
The Astros dissolved their scouting depts due to their belief in video and analytics. Law says (2017 remember) “With every team boasting an analytics dept., which averages somewhere around eight people…”
He quotes another analytic director saying it has “permeated the baseball culture. It’s how you do business now.”
Hmmn. So it appears giants were actually involved in analytics many years ago under previous regime. Perhaps that is what allowed Sabes group to draft all aforementioned top Giants prospects.
What ever became of Sabermetrics?
Did it start out as moneyball then morph into analytics?
sabermetrics/analytics: interchangeable
MoneyBall was just the A’s gimmicky thing
The As deserve huge credit for making modern analytics a part of their operations earlier than others.
absolutely.
Also the first to tarp an upper deck, I think…
I think Moneyball, the story of the a’s near-miracle 2002 season, is worth reading for the well-rendered drama in the a’s draft room in June as the Giants selected Matt Cain.
The analytics stuff started in the 70s, took shape with Bill James in the 80s, and was popularized by “Moneyball.” It was treated as though it was as recondite as post-structuralist theory by The Baseball Establishment for a long while for no particularly good reason. While the math/data analysis can be hard, the basic ideas are easily grasped and logical. That’s why it now rules baseball.
I’ve never read or seen “Moneyball.”
Book and movie are both good. Interesting and entertaining. Nothing in them would be considered a revelation these days, but still worthwhile.
Bill James was like a punk rocker that came and rocked the sport of baseball. I think he was working as a security guard, and writing his first baseball books in his spare time.
He, as a fan, challenged the baseball world to see a lot of things differently, and he mostly won out. It opened the door for non-baseball pros to examine and analyze the sport.
I’ve probably told this story before, but I like it a lot. James said one of the reasons he created baseball analytics was because he heard Whitey Herzog say that Ozzie Smith’s defense saved two runs a game. Something about that sounded off to James, and he did some very simple research and realized Whitey was full of B.S. on that. 2 runs a game is 324 runs saved by one defensive player, an absurd statement. But, in those day, a baseball lifer like Herzog could say something absurd like that and people would just nod and say “Yeah, that sounds right.”
non baseball pros…here’s is Law’s final sentence of book: “So if you want to work for a baseball team someday, my advice to you is even stronger than a year ago: Learn to code, because information is the strongest currency a team can have.”
btw he loved Ozzie Smith and brought up his defensive stats few times. “..Smith comes out as the most valuable defensive SS and fourth most valuable defender at any position in history, saving about 239 runs over the course of his 19 year career.” Stats here are according to B/R TotalZone metric.
And………….
If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So from my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you
Jarrett Allen, UT horn who played HS ball in Austin, has tremendous ‘fro. Cool player.
Still needs work on his D, but he’s become a nice player. And he’s only 22.
can you imagine anyone on our team hitting 3 homeruns in a game? How bout in a week?
Jesus Christ….lol
Fuck,
Did you see the President’s last email?
It’s going to be President Trump and Vice President Pence on the ballot against two of our Nation’s most RADICAL Democrats: Sleepy Joe Biden and Phony Kamala Harris.
Both of them are corrupt career politicians who LOVE anarchy and HATE America. They are WEAK on crime and they would DESTROY everything we’ve worked so hard for.
We know that Joe and Kamala don’t stand a chance against President Trump and Vice President Pence, but we can’t ignore the fact they are being FLOODED with dirty Mega Donor Money coming from ELITES who live on the COAST.
It’s REAL Americans vs. SOCIALISTS, Fuck, and President Trump is calling on YOU to step up and make a statement that AMERICA IS NOT FOR SALE.
For the NEXT HOUR: all gifts 600%-MATCHED!
“who live on the COAST.”
Oh no!! The coast!! The coast!!!!
THE COAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doc Gooden thinks Mets will go after Cueto at the deadline…
There are people that are drug addicts and there are people that just love drugs.
I think Doc is the latter…
I guarantee you Kamala knocks off 15 lbs before her first TV debate…
Maybe SanDog can set the O/U…
11.5
Excellent Dog. I’m gonna hammer the over.
She’s definitely a looker and will be highly motivated.
It’ll be front page stuff in every silly women’s magazine.
Some off day music. One of my favorite Allman Brothers songs with Greg accompanied bY the Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, and jazz-pianist Herbie Hancock. Helluva line-up.
Love me some Herbie. Wish I’d been able to see Duane play this one.
Some discussion here some time back about Motherless Brooklyn, J Lethem’s excellent novel. Finally got around to watching Edw. Norton’s movie adaptation. Very good, despite the liberties he took. The main thing was the main character, the private detective savant with Tourette’s. Moving the tale to the fifties and turning the guy’s affliction into an engine for loud spontaneous Kerouacian bebop prosody was clever and it fit perfectly into the
themes of cultural miscegenation. Motherless white boy from Brooklyn found a home in Harlem. Meanwhile, a plot full of NYC power brokers with real-life historical counterparts shows us how bad things might be if trump was smart.
Craig I agree with you re college football.18- 20 year olds can play a 8 game season in the spring, and a lesser seaon again in the fall. They play spring football as it is and hit the shit out of each other inscrimmage. Limit contact drills and getr done!
Re 4 run deficit… K was kinda right. My off the cuff thught is they have already erased more 4 run deficits in 20 games than all last season. Too lazy to check, but it would not shock me.
My unofficial count has the Giants winning three games last season in which they trailed by 4 or more runs. There were two other games they rallied from 4 down but lost anyway. The 2020 team is going to have a hard time topping this one:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN201905030.shtml
great game btw Nets and Blazers last night. Caris Levert missed on game winner at buzzer, Portland in Sun out.
Tyler Johnson, local kid out of St. Francis HS of Mtn. View good game off bench. Oaktown Dame went off again, hit one from logo barely across half court. funky season but enjoyable to watch playoffs.
Not much defense between those two teams, that’s for sure. Yeah, the Dame shot was ridiculous. Levert was great down the stretch, but I didn’t like his last shot that could’ve won it.