A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Stix has got today……

Carstie Clausen	Wed, Mar 30, 8:03 PM (9 hours ago)
to me

 Spring training games can be pretty strange studies.  Here it was a matter of good pitching shutting down good hitting and a questionable lineup going to town vs a questionable starter.  So far as I could make out SF started all of three regulars while KC sported 6. The big difference was with the starters.  Disco was solid through 4.1 innings and with perhaps one more S.T. start, so he should be able to comfortably do five come the season.  The Royals starter was pretty much an unknown quality and got lit up bad.

 Our hopefuls are definitely a motivated bunch.  Most of the ones in the field today had grown up in other organizations and Giants scouts spotted them and the development folks gave Zaidi the “go get em”.  30  Y.O Luke Williams grew up in the Brewers org and at his advanced age saw very few MLB at bats.  So he may be part of the mix between Richmond and Sacramento.  Reserve probably.  It could be his last hurrah. Blandino got his second tater, so he’s being noticed.  Again, his MiL years were with other orgs. Gamboa lit em up with his second dinger, a two run shot.  It was his third tater already in S.T. embellished by his 4th Ribbie.  Minor league depth.  Probably not so deep.  His heroics will be duly noted.

 Seems like Rogers’ frisbees simply do not work in the desert dryness and heat.  So he may drop down below the late inning role and possibly be replaced as #3 late-inning man by Alvarez, who sports a hard to beat .000 ERA this spring.  Leone is not far behind. He had one bad outing but the composite is a .300 Earnie. The only other Giants hurler Taylor Williams, who started in the Brewers organization back in ’13 has had a decent minor league composite ERA of .322, giving up an average of one HR per 9 Ip and has a career 99 bases on balls versus 311 K’s.  That means he may get a long look at Sacramento.

 Hard to believe that the Opener is only 8 days away.  Looks like the Rotation is gonna be what we had hoped for and the pen looks deep and capable.  So the rmoundsmen will  likely carry the show while all those experts once again do not consider Los Gigantes to be serious contenders.  We should know more about the offense by month’s end.  Once more Estrada looks like he could become one of the big pleasant surprises of the season.  So it’s finally looking fun, anyway

Longo now officially shelved after finger surgery. This marks the 5th consecutive year he’ll do time on the injured list. This opens up a chance for Thairo to start some games at 3rd or even Vosler. How about Farhan’s new dumpster dive pick up Luke Williams? I think that’s his name.

Late NIght Lamonte going down probably (hopefully) secures a spot for the underrated Grave Duggar to make the opening day roster.

Not really going into 2022 with a full head of steam, are we?

Interesting take:

I don’t know enough about the plays that are getting called to know if this guy has a point.

Is Kerr….overrated?

alleykat69 said, on March 26, 2022 at 3:02 pm (Edit)

Irritating thing I hate that the Giants do is baby talking the players name and that’s from Kapler,the players,K&K, all saying that,there not in preschool ferchrissakes, usually adding a Y..
Kappy,Webby,Yazzy,Belty,Duggy,Woody,Cobby,Ruffy,etc

Man, tell me about it. This bugs the hell out of me for some reason. I think baseball players are not the brightest bulbs and this is one example.

In terms of what’s happening this spring, I’m listening to pieces of the game on the radio just because I like to drive around and listen to baseball. But other than that I have no idea what’s going on with the team.

Does Ramos have a chance to make the roster?

You must appreciate the irony: in the same week that Baffert loses his Derby horse because he’s banned for supposed cheating, he wins the richest race in horse racing (12 mil) in the country with the toughest drug standards. Wow, 9-1 longshot Country Grammer upends Life Is Good. Horse racing is incredible.

Really interested to see where everyone comes in with this year’s win total prediction. After last year I think it’s proven that no one knows anything. Still, coming off 107, where do you go from that? If they win 90 but drop 17 off 2021 that’s still pretty good, right? Or do you think losing Buster and Bryant and Gausman only amounts to a couple of wins losts?

Having watched everyone get better and being quite certain that Farhan has bungled this off season I think we’re all going to be throwing darts in the low to mid 90’s. I’m coming in lower, I am gonna say….90. Total guess having factored in last year’s outlier # plus losing players plus Farhan’s dicking around.

It’s funny because I answered Daniel’s Playing Pepper questions on March 11 just after the lockout ended. I had expected Z to do more in the short window he had to improve the team before opening day. He failed to do that.

Here is my answers to Daniel and his questions from 3/11

Craig Vaughan <craigvaughan60@yahoo.com>

To:Daniel Shoptaw

Fri, Mar 11 at 8:19 AM

1) Not including lockout issues, tell me about San Francisco’s offseason.  What did you like about it, what didn’t you like about it, was there something you were hoping for that didn’t happen?

What I liked about the off season was….they did nothing. The single worst thing a team can do is sign a big bonanza free agent. It’s lazy GMing. Makes the owner and the fans feel good in the moment but those guys rarely pay off (at least compared to what they get paid). Let’s see what Farhan does with the mid level guys. I’m expecting a lot of action in this upcoming short free agent window. 
2) There were a lot of articles written about the somewhat surprising success of the Giants last season.  In your opinion, what was the most important factor in their record and can it happen again, at least in some regard?

I have no idea how they did that. I think I checked in with an 84 win total prediction (or something like that). It might have been less. What I learned about baseball last season was that Zaidi knows more than I do about how to build a baseball team. Do I think it will happen again? No. 
3) Year 1 without Buster Posey.  How strange is it going to be not to have him in the orange and black?

I move on from players very quickly. For me this won’t be hard to do at all. I’m not sold on Bart at all though so replacing Posey’s production will be a massive issue that will likely strongly impact their end of year win total.
4) Which prospect are you most excited for and when should they make their major league debut?

Probably Ramos but I don’t see any prospect making it this year so my enthusiasm for all of them is pretty low right now. 
5) How do you see 2022 shaking out for this team?  What’s your expectation of where they finish?

Well I was such an accurate prognosticator last year so….lqtm. I really do think Buster’s absence will be huge. His bat won’t be replaced but the way the pitchers responding to the delicate fingers he’d throw down, I’m really not sure our staff can overcome that. I predict they win 90 games, good enough to make it in to the new post season format. 
6) Besides yourself and the team account, give me up to three good Giants Twitter accounts to follow.

I’m at war with most of the local scribes so I’ll leave all of them off this list except @extrabaggs who puts all those chumps to shame with his detailed reporting and writing. And I don’t follow any other twitter accounts that focus on the Giants. 

Had lunch with someone yesterday who went to high school with Joc. She said he is every bit the asshole he seems to be and that he hated the Giants back then. So, there’s that…..

In all the *excitement* of Farhan’s moves, I missed that we designated Austin Dean so that Matt Boyd could be added to the 40 man roster.

I also read we were finalists in the Trevor Story chase. If true, I guess that’s a good thing. But that also just magnifies Farhan’s inability to score a big FA signing.

We have all the $ in the world, if we misfire in a FA it’s not a big deal.

I’m tired of nothing but Brebbia Aisle pick ups.

Still doing a slow burn about Farhan. You know, he says he’s in on all these top tier free agents and yet he never snags any of them. What does that tell you about him? Bargain hunting is fine and he’s excellent at it. But it’s not unreasonable to think we overachieved last season and by losing Gausman, Posey and Bryant and that we are in for a huge let down this year.

They won 107 games. Farhan got cocky. This is a classic case of “our guys are likeable so let’s just keep all of them”.

Austin Dean…..

This has to be a joke.

Genuinely discouraged and disappointed in Farhan. Jesus Christ you don’t keep up with the elite teams in the league by signing fucking Joc Pederson and Matt Boyd. Sure, Rondon was nice but they have so much money to spend and they blew it. They sat around and dime stored their way to doing almost nothing.

Pathetic.

I’m coming back to this story because it’s such an excellent example of nobody knowing how anything works. You can think you know but you don’t. NOBODY had Davante Adams going to the Raiders. NOBODY. In fact, nobody had him going anywhere. “They’ll just franchise tag him” everyone said.

I follow this random vegas content guy on twitter just cause I like the stuff he posts and I like to keep a watchful eye on the happenings in that quaint little town. So on March 4th he tweeted this (typical of the stuff he tweets):

This dude isn’t into sports at all and I remember reading it and thinking, “so what? Dude likes to gamble? Who knows. The Raiders aren’t getting him”. About a week later Rodgers resigned with the Packers for some absurd number—I think I read 150 mil but that’s not relevant to this thread so I’m not looking it up.

Now here’s my question: what are the odds that you would be working with someone, closely, and have no idea that they just bought a 12 million dollar home in a random city? Probably pretty low. And what are the odds that you were a football player who just randomly bought a 12 million dollar home in a town with an NFL team and you had no intention of playing for them? Then two weeks later you force a trade there?

So how did all this go down? Is Rodgers just a horrible person who took 150 mil knowing his #1 was leaving in 2 weeks and the Packers are now completely screwed? Did the Raiders somehow tamper at all here? Or was this some master plan that Adams executed all by himself? Another Paly grad I might add….

I am genuinely interested in knowing how this all went down.

This Freeman news is …..irritating. Even though we knew he was going there, I dunno, I’m just tired of them doing this.

On the flip side, we got….Matt Boyd. uh huh. Well, I guess he’ll match up well with Freeman….once he recovers from TJ surgery.

I trust Zaidi but I’m grading his post lockout moves downward. Like C+. I like who we got but he has a boatload of dough, he doesn’t need to fiddle around with 6 million dollar 1 year signings—that’s A’s bullshit.

I supported the Kris Bryant trade and it was mildly successful I guess, but here’s why I hope they don’t resign him:

At least we aren’t A’s fans. Chapman to the BlueJays. If I were an A’s fan I’d never go to another game again (tho that’s pretty easy for me to say/do).

They’ll probably move to Vegas soon.

The Rondon pick up was nice. I’m in no position to knock anything Zaidi does (or doesn’t do). But come on man, the shackles are off, let’s see more action! With the Dodgers set to land Freeman (Jesus, I am getting tired of these pick ups) I don’t think we can stroll quietly through the Brebbia aisle.

Hopefully something happens today.

He turned 58 today. I remember, and I have no idea why I remember this, when he came up he was 22 and I thought to myself “that’s cool, he’s the same age as his number.”

I have zero recollection of him being an Oriole.

He hit .345 for St. Louis once traded there and then retired.

This is why Farhan is a genius:

Now, if that rotation bombs then I’ll take quibbles from those who think my call of *genius* is overrated. But as it stands, for that paltry sum, that’s a solid looking rotation.

Now, go out and get another couple of bats.

Finally.

Now that the children have stopped fighting over their billions it’s time to get back to the business of why we have Summer in the first place. There is actually A LOT of action about to happen. The free agent window is tiny and the Giants have many millions to spend. Everyone’s off Bryant and the buzz names are Schwarber and Castellanos. Neither of those guys sounds like a good fit to me. Could we get our old Paly favorite Joc Pederson? How bout the Japanese fella who’s name escapes me at this early morn hour….

Truth is, I don’t really care. Baha! Farhan will sign guys that I will blindly support and we will get baseball every day and every night the way God intended it.

Let me be crystal clear about something: I hate that motherfucker Russell Wilson. I think he’s the fakest of hustle. I hate that he turns on a literal cloaking device every time a Niner is about to sack his dumb ass. And I was beyond tired of him beating SF all the time.

I was looking foward to us turning the tables on him as he ages into irrelevance but the Broncos took that small joy away from me by woefully overpaying for a dude in the twilight of his career.

But Seattle is much weaker today. At least until the draft but frankly their draft picks have stunk for many years so maybe they’ve just turned to shit and that’s that.

Bigger bases? Hell yes, sign me up.

Anything that increases the number of stolen base attempts in a game I’m all for.

I only saw this in passing and I don’t have the details but I think I read that the players and owners have agreed to end the shift, implement a pitch clock and make the bases bigger? Did I dream this or is this really happening?

Saw this pic on twitter, definitely cool enough to share here

Reading a lot of nonsense lately on social media about all these baseball fans who are quitting baseball over this latest blunder by the sport. Stop. No you aren’t. You like Summer don’t you? Everyone remember Summer? There is no Summer without baseball. Not for real baseball fans. I don’t care how much the game has change or how disillusioned you’ve gotten from the pompous billionaires fighting it out with the out of touch millionaires. When the weather gets warm and you’re driving around with the top down listening to the slow drawl of Jon Miller in the background and you drive by the ladies swooning to your knowing dude head nod, come on…..don’t tell me you’re giving that up.

Don’t tell me you’re giving up checking out box scores or hitting leaders in the morning paper.

Don’t tell me you aren’t belting out a “Fuck yeah!” and likely jumping off the couch after Yaz blasts a rocket into McCovey Cove.

Don’t tell me you’re giving up ballpark food. Not in the Summer time. There’s no victory in saying you didn’t eat a dog and some garlic fries in the Winter. But see how long you last in the Summer giving that shit up cold turkey.

This is like all the people who said they were quitting the NFL over players kneeling. LOL, no you didn’t. NFL ratings broke records this year.

Look, i get it. It’s not the same game we grew up with.

But you aren’t quitting it.

You just aren’t.

Three months go by, the owners won’t even talk to the players. Where these talks back in December? The owners wanted to cancel these games. I’m 100% behind the players here. Look, the game has changed and it’s not ever coming back. Old vets aren’t the cornerstone of your team anymore–it’s the young studs. And the owners like paying them shit. If the number of years of team control isn’t going to change then they have to start paying these young guys more money. Period.

Yaz is 31. He isn’t FA eligible till 2026. He is NEVER gonna make any real money in this game.

Stop treating the young guys like you own them and pay these men their money.

March 1st. Today has always been the unoffical beginning of Spring to me. With the dark and gloomy February in the past and baseball surfacing on the horizon, it has always been a day of hope for me. Except today.

Still feels like February….