A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Well, at least Joc has gotten it going a little bit of late. The rest of this offense is just an embarrassment. Remember when Yaz was this crowning coup of a pick up? His last two full seasons, 800+ at bats, he’s been absolute crap. Who cares how much control you have of something if you’re controlling crap?

Final Flapalooza is a good idea but I just don’t see it happening. I can’t even get my shit together to take advantage of Marty’s OJ dinner. Told him I’ve got to push it out to at least mid October. He said “whenever is fine.”

So let’s see if something changes but right now I don’t have a weekend day that will work for the rest of this season.

I’m totally diggin’ the Jimmy G move. He’s got the temperment to be the back up. And let’s face it, our OL is nothing to write home about. Starting QB’s get hurt. That’s a fact. Do you guys want Nate Dumbell starting games? Bill Walsh would have done something like this—maybe not this exact move because Bill would have run Jimmy out of town last year, lol. But he would have figured out how to have a good back up for Trey. I don’t see Jimmy as a threat at all, just a nice insurance plan.

JG is just gonna be chillin’ on the sidelines looking magnificent, blowin’ kisses to dem ladies, Trey goes down he swoops in and wins us a few games then heads back to the bench blowin’ kisses to dem ladies. It’s perfect.

One thing I haven’t missed in the last week are the Kap pre and post game shows. How infuriating are his comments? He usually goes way out of his way to say absolutely nothing. Is he saying a lot of “To your point”? Oh, wait, that’s Farhan’s favorite thing to say.

All I can say is that I hope there is a lot of looking in the mirror this off season. I can’t support watching this boring ass team again next year.

I can’t think of anything that headline reminds me of. I’m just glad I didn’t have to watch that mess. More golf today, we are leaving the friendly confines of Black Butte and heading to Bend.

Have a great day, Flappers. Time for at least a little redemption with a win against one of our former allies, the withering Aaron Sanchez…..

Another headline subtly referencing something that might have happened in the underbelly of an after hours Minnesota tavern circa 1975?

Anyway, our march back towards .500 took a big hit last night…

Read last night’s comments just now.

I haven’t heard a peep from anywhere about Kap losing the team in any way whatsoever. Maybe I’ve missed a story on that? That would be unlikely. Did a story on him getting tuned out by the players come out in the last 24-36 hours?

Look, we stink. We have 2 reliable starting pitchers, a leaky bullpen, porous defense and, as Tolbert threw in Zaidi’s face the other day, no middle of the order at all. Getting to .500 should be our World Series this year. It’s the best we can hope for.

Zaidi starts Year 5 of his reign next year right? A clear direction for the franchise needs to unfold starting next season. Right now we just have a bunch of the same underwhelming dudes doddling around out there and a minor league system that doesn’t seem to be offering anything at all………

Yikes…that headline reads like a group sex scene from the underbelly of an after hours Minnesota tavern circa 1975…..

Ok gents, I’m in Black Butte, Oregon for a while to play golf, re-set, and not think about the Giants too much. As it is the waning days of this fine institution I will attempt to put up a new daily thread but if I don’t you know why.

Here’s a pic from last year, 10th tee Big Meadow. That’s my main man Chris, otherwise known as bird dog when he posts here. Of course the grand ol’ girl herself sitting majestically in the background.

It’s just hilarious how we are either all-out to beat Detroit or we straight up just lose to them. They are the worst offense in the league and in some statistical categories they are historically one of the worst. Webb looked great until the wheels fell off. Didn’t really matter, we weren’t doing anything with the bats. This is going to go down as one of the most frustrating, boring teams in SF Giants history.

Back to .500 baby. Our watershed number. And now we got ace #2 teed up! “Rodon and Webb, then pray for Feb”. It’s got a nice ring to it.

We aren’t out of this.
Yet.

Ok, can we please wipe the floor with Detroit this series? We are better than them. Just do this. No fiddling around, just do it.

I see we have a 2.9% chance to make the post season.

I’ll take those odds. What else do I have to do?

Hey! We won! Wooooo Hooooo!!!!!!

Got some very good news yesterday that my dad is recovering from the complications caused by his broken leg. Hang in there, dad!

And this morning I woke up to a text with an old song that reminded me of some good ol’ days. So I am appreciating those days today and all the people in my life who lived them with me.

At this point I am struggling to even find the interest to listen to SOME of the games on the radio when I’m driving around running errands. This team is boring and I just don’t have it in me right now. I’ll throw up a new thread for Flap Nation because you guys deserve it but my interest in the Giants right now is near zero…..

First games at Coors can always be tough. Everyone needs to get used to the elements. But that doesn’t explain the previous 2 games. Or this entire season.

I contacted wordpress about why the site has defaulted back to it’s original settings and no one got back to me. As the Flap heads into its final days it’s kinda creepy that this has happened on its own. It’s full circle shit.

I don’t want to talk about that series or the trip to Colorado which will likely be an abject disaster. Instead, let’s take a look at good ol’ James and his wife at the game yesterday.

For reference, here’s a picture of Snarkk and James meeting me (2013) with Kokunuts looking on. I fucking love this picture, lol

Leone is the easy target right now but the fact is the pitchers Kap trusts in his bullpen right now are on a short nearly non existent list. Did Farhan try to add a BP arm or two at the break? He did not. In fact he traded Trevor Rosenthal (RH) who was just clocked at 98 in a Tuesday rehab start. He’s just about ready to join the Brewers. Would be nice to have a guy like that to bring up right now……

For those on the west coast who watched on tv, those at the ballpark, and especially the east coast Flap contingent, I salute all of you for making it to the end of that game. I did not. But it was a fun surprise to wake up to. This is starting to remind me a little of the run we went on courtesy of The Sun Dressed Goddess.

Dudes on the radio trying to draw a link from when we were really rolling in 2021 to the run they’re on now. Hey, I love the wins but be realistic. We’re beating up on the worst teams in the league. Keep it going but don’t start believing this is 2021. I’m happy. Sad for Bum, but happy.

FInished BCS last night. Epic. Nice closure on BB and the BCS story line.

I know we had to come back not once but twice to beat that terrible team AND we blew a 5-0 lead but that was still a pretty sweet ending. The Giants aren’t very good and have some massive holes that Farhan decided to do nothing about. But it’s still baseball, it’s still summertime, and we are back to .500 baby. We’re 22.5 games out of first place? Pfftttt go ahead and make it 222.5, Flappers don’t give a fuck. Let’s roll as far as this leaky train can take us…..

Be honest, how many of you are rooting for Bumgarner tonight and how hard are you rooting for him?

I keep getting tricked into thinking that if we have Webb and Rodon shutting teams down, that’s a pretty good 1-2 punch in the post season. There is, of course, the matter of getting there.

Doval has only allowed runs once in the last 10 games. Again, that’s a pretty good ender to a game.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff that needs to get addressed in betwen Webb/Rodon and Doval at the end but it’s impossible to write this team off this year.

Black Shoes Beede is back in the Bay to try his luck again. Maybe San Dawg’s favorite player who never was?

he walked right into this one…

I get that Tatis is an idiot but how can you employ a team of people who are also just as stupid as you are?

Well, not sure where we go now. Rodon wiping out the Pirates tonight would be a good start. I’m happy to just sit back and watch this unfold.

Another day off. The pen arms could use that. But it won’t matter. I wonder if Z made an offer to the Tigers for one of their BP arms?

We’ll never know.

I just checked my emailing hoping that Stix had this thread covered. No such luck. He must be raging in a Minnesota forest.

Why does everything Rogers throw up there look so obviously hittable?

A surprising 1-0 victory over the Padres. San Dawg was at this game and will, hopefully, add a re-cap in the comment section.

All of a sudden confidence oozes from this leaky train. Will the SF bats finally flank the mighty contributions of Corn on the Cobb?

We’ll find out soon enough…..

Well, we took down the Bay Bridge Series and when the final out was secured I was having trouble even seeing the tv through my tears.

Yeah. No.

Anyway, this season trudges on and every time they win a couple of games I start thinking they could make the post season. This is what a .500 team will do to you.

This is from a couple of days ago but still worthy of a spot in the main thread. Stix’s version of War and Peace:

Carstie Clausen	Fri, Aug 5, 11:48 AM (2 days ago)
to me, carstie

 Flav:  Kudos.  This meta-analysis on the why’s and the wherefores was, like Blade immediately pointed out,  definitely top-grade and one of your best ever.  Constantly, you hit the nail right on the head and so did Blade and right on through the rest of the Flappers,  concluding with Bozo, at which point I decided to give credit where it is overdue.  Great bunch here and it will be tough when this season ends and you hang up those spikes.  Got my fingers crossed that someone, or maybe two or three guys can get together and share that “burden”.  Cue Eric Burdon and The Animals and “Down in Monterrey”.  Somehow the Flap must go on and you have done your bit and today’s superlative offering might well serve as an overall swan-song.

 I’m totally with you on not trading off Rodon.  It should of happened.  However, as a Flapper pointed out, the teams who could surely have used him to get into and dominate in the Post-Season only offered “grade-B” material.  Perhaps that had a lot to do with a perceived dump on the Giants for the team’s recent collapse.  One would think that at least one single Grade-A prospect, plus two or three lower-minors “B”s would have been offered.  But business does not always make sense…particularly when uncaring owners get involved in the process. Yesterday an Atlanta perspective came to my attention.  The Braves had already overextended themselves in trading prospects to offer something even remotely acceptable for JocUlations.  So it is what it is.

So how much of the transactions or lack thereof fall on Zaidi’s shoulders?  Butts in the bleachers may be the underlying reasoning coming from Baer and/or the Johnsons.  Both of those two stars are draws.  Star-factor brings in those fashionable fans.  Perhaps a few thousand extra butts in the seats over the course of the season.  Bottom line stuff.

 For some crazy reason it has fallen on little old me to analyze what Zaidi/Harris actually accomplished.

  Mostly, the Tradewinds that did blow were long-term:  Down on the farm. On the lead, the trade with Seattle for our useful catcher Casali and Boyd who were currently on the I.L.  Seems like the Mariners are all-in this season.  It has been awhile for them, like ’95 when they got ambushed by the original Evil Empire, while having set a new W-L record during the season.  Hungry Mariners have had a raft of injuries, particularly effecting their catchers.  So they gave up a AA pitcher named Stryffer.  Who? Reliever.  35.2 IP with 19 entire bases on balls vs. 57 special K’s. 2.27 ERA and a total of 14 saves.  Giants desperately need for next season a probably reliable late-innings guy. Who knows?  Stryffer could be the Stifler.  Maybe an effective sangfroid closer.  Certainly a setup man.  This could have been a steal.

 Asking for a bit of personal credit on the Ruff-stuff trade. I called it on Ruff in one of my more recent postings.  For the Mets Darin could be the ’54 model Dusty Rhodes New York Giants World Champs pinch-hitting specialist—or in today’s world—D.H. for the team that retained the Giants orange (along with the Dodger blue) to show a bit of civic baseball pride.  Ruff showed his stuff for S.F. and we will miss his timely blasts.  So who did we get for him?  Topping the official list: J.D. Davis.  Mets needed roster-space and seldom used Davis came to be the fall-guy. A California boy, Davis maaaybe will find his sweet-spot with Los Gigantes.  No big gamble, though.  My take is that Davis was just the face-man in the trade.

 LHP Zwack, a 24 Y.O. Minnesota boy has had him a ball in his hands in both the Mets’ A and A+ leagues this season. Check out these stats:  He’s 6-2 as a starter and even picked up a save along the way, sporting a 2.36 ERA over 76.1 IP giving up all of 58 hits over that span, 20 earnies, three whole taters along with an 18-96 BB-K ratio; a sweet WHIP, a whopping one of ).996, along with a 6.8 hits per nine, H.R.’s at 0.4 and finally 2.1 BB per 9 topped by 11.3 special K’s.  I’ve been following pipeline stats throughout the season and the only set which comes even close is our 20 Y.O Kyle Harrison.  If MiL stats are any measure for future performance in The Show, Harrison and Zwack should be in the top 3 of the Giants rotation by ’24 or so.

 But that’s not all in the Ruff deal.  Zaidi went for the throat on this one.  Mets must have been drooling.  Two more pitchers. The junior of the pair is a 23 Y.O. RHP name of Seymour, who pitched for St. Lucie in A ball and Brooklyn in A+.  Not too shabby stats commence with a 2.76 ERA over 18 games, with 13 being starts. Cumulatively, he gave up 68 hits over 81.2 I.P., with 25 earnies, 8 dingers, a BB-K ratio of 21-92 and a WHIP of a cozy 1.090.  That was achieved via 7.5 hits per 9, …9 H.R.’s, 2.3 BB and 10.1 special K’s. Steal #2?

 Ready for The Show:  Third theft from the top of New York’s pitcher pipeline is a 26 Y.O. obvious LHP Polak name of Szapuki.  Triple-A stats better than any similar reliever for the River Cats. Not spectacular but sturdy with a nice 3.24 ERA along with 16 saves. Stats include 54 hits over 64 I.P. leading to 24 earned runs and including a scanty 5 taters, a 29BB-87 K’s and a fairly decent WHIP of 1.297.  Hits per nine have added to 7.6, homers to 0.7 and 2.3 BBs vs. 10.1 K’s.  Don’t fall off your chair if “Puki” gets the call by September.  Another late-inning reliever and a southpaw to boot.

 Strikes me that with those three much needed pitchers, Zaidi not only robbed the bank but also lubed up the teller and cleaned out the vault…We will miss Ruff-stuff maybe not winning a couple of games this year for us with timely taters, but his going to the Mets is gonna have a major effect on S.F.’s future.  In two or three years it is not improbable that the Giants will have a stockpile of hurlers (including the vast majority of this season’s draftees) quite sufficient to wow them comes the 2024 trade deadline.

 Off the top, the Casali-Boyd trade to Seattle, netting Stryffler, also provides yet another catcher, this one from A+ ball where he was being constantly evaluated by Giants personnel as he played against the Emeralds.  Twenty-three years of age, Andy Thomas is the long-term replacement for Casali.  A 2021 5th round pick for Seattle, Thomas sported an acceptable B.A. of 2.64 with a strike-zone conscious 400 OBP and an acceptable 444 S.P (adding to an 8.44 OPS) along with 9 H.R.s, a dozen doubles and a nifty 16.2% walk-rate.

 More than one fan has griped about the trade of Trevor Rosenthal (Trevor, we hardly—never— knew you) for a low-power 22 Y.O. from Winkler, Manitoba name of Tristan Peters.  A LHB, Peters can play well in all three O.F. positions which he has demonstrated this season for Wisconsin Rapids, the A+ affiliate for the Brewskis.  Here’s some revealing stats:  Over 330 A.B.’s (obviously no bench-time) Peters combined 61 runs scored with 51 RBI’s for a total of 112 runs produced (I love that stat) on 101 hits. Whenever runs produced tops total hits, my eyebrows lift pleasantly.

 Here’s why some of the gripers complained about Peters’ relative lack of power.  He happens to be one of those doubles-machines which I so favor, with 22 of them,  topped in a sense by a nearly incredible 8 triples and capped by a modest 7 homers, for a total of 37 of his 101 safeties being XBH.  He’s gotta have one helluva batting-eye, drawing 45 walks as against 61 whiffs.  How many Giants farmhands have a .306 batting-average?  Well we have another one now to join the tiny crew.  Add all those walks and the OBP rises to a near-sterling .386, and highlighted by all those doubles and triples his S.P. is a surprising .485, for an OPS of .871.  Not too shabby for a 22 Y.O. in A+ ball.  Should he maintain anything remotely resembling this season’s production in pitcher-dominated Double A for the Flying Squirrels next spring, Mr. Tristan may join The Show by April of ’24.  With his skill set, he may fairly soon find himself batting in the two-hole or possibly even leading off.

 Here’s the under the radar accomplishments by the Dynamic Duo of Zaidi and Harris:  Officially leading-off J.D. Davis who is a previously marginal but somewhat versatile corner infielder who becomes a hometown reclamation project for the Giants.  He could be little more than a space-filler, yet another dumpster pickup.  Or he could love him some home cookin.

 Infield corners:  Check.

  A bit away yet, but a stolid, relatively solid replacement for Casali, probably by ’24.  Trade an injured-list catcher and get a future replacement.  Check.

 Outfielder with full versatility, probable leadoff or 2-slot on-base specialist. Check.

 Pitchers ready for the show and pitchers as outstanding prospects to fatten up the pipeline in the near future.  Stryffer and Szapaki look ready for The Show.  Likely to both show up in September and maybe sooner, depending on ongoing evaluations.  Both relievers are desperately needed late-inning guys.  The other pair, starters, are likely a couple years away, but sure have some promise and should rapidly advance to the head of the pipeline.  Somewhere between September of ’23 and April of ’24 they could both appear in the Halloween Machine uniform.

 Grain is starting to ripen on the farms around these parts.  On the Giants farms, the ripening process has taken a Great Leap Forward.  Keep those names in mind.  The haul:  A serviceable corner infielder, an up and coming catcher, a high OBP outfielder, with significant XBH cred and no fewer than 4 pitchers, a pair of ready to go relievers and a duo of promising starters.  Rodon and Pederson did not bring home the bacon.  Butts in the seats, dontcha know.  But by finessing what they could afford to offer, Zaidi and Harris did their under the radar once again due diligence.

 Personally, my take is that they played it like 3-card Monte…or maybe more like Grand-Theft automatic.

I’m trying to remember the first time I posted at the Splash. There was absolutely no lurking for me. Twinfan and Nipper were talking about projected win totals for, I think 2008, and they were WAY to high, lol. I politely let them know that and Twin jumped on me like a bear in the woods. I was pretty hooked on blogging, at least there, from that moment onward. I remember when that season ended and I was like “ok guys, good chatting with you, talk to you next season!” and Twin was like, “we’re not going anywhere, dunderhead.”

So I kept blogging….

I THINK I started the first blog at blogspot.com in 2009 (although it’s possible I started it in 2010 and then migrated over to wordpress on May 31st 2010). But who knows, maybe we had the blogspot blog for the entirety of 2009? It’s too bad I didn’t do anything to preserve that place, there was some gold there.

My blogging style has changed over the years. I used to be much more combative. That was partly due to having someone to battle with (twin) partly due to just being really pissed off at other shit (life) and partly not knowing how to tolerate other people having different opinions than mine. That last one is probably the greatest gift I’ve gotten from this place—developing the ability to tolerate other opinions (even dumb ones) without flying off the handle. I still fly off the handle on twitter on occasion but for the most part I confine my remarks to snarky comments. Even when I got banned on twitter it was total bullshit. All I did was tell John Hinckley Jr. he was a shitty musician and that pussy complained about that and I was in twitter jail for 24 hours. These days Twitter is really where I spend most of my *blogging* time although that’s not really blogging it’s just gathering information and sometimes commenting on it.

I know I’m going to miss this place when I finally shutter her doors. That’s one reason why I’m going to keep her available as an online museum. And that also gives me the opportunity to fire her back up if I miss it more than I think I’m going to. The biggest thing for me is that I helped create this community that has spread across the globe and into so many people’s real lives. Most people don’t usually a chance to have that much influence in the world around them. I really appreciate that.

I turned the radio on just in time to hear Miller say “and that’s 8 straight losses to LA, the first time that’s happened since 1979!”. If I heard that right, and I might not have, that’s wild. Both LA and SF were under .500 in ’79.

Tolbert and Copes were ragging on Giants fans on their show saying “I don’t remember anyone complaining about the off season moves.” And to some extent that’s very true. There was really no FA I wanted them to go get and even looking back on it now there’s no one I think Z missed on—or anyone who would have made a difference this year.

Re-signing Craw and Belt even had to get done. I wasn’t excited about it but I understood it. Shit, Craw had us all convinced that Kap’s team of coaches completely re-invented baseball for him. And while Bryant certainly hasn’t been missed he was productive last year.

And if you look at it that way, that they lost 44% of their hitter production just off those 4 guys not being here (including Posey, obviously). And you can say what happened to the role guys? But guys like Estrada, who was a great find, were never supposed to be playing every day. That’s not who they are.

So when you boil all that down the only thing I’m upset about is that Farhan didn’t trade Rodon. He would have been a nice #2 for a playoff team and I refuse to believe there was no value to be had there.

Even if you say “well SD hasn’t won anything despite all their bold moves”–that is true. But one thing they have done is given their fan base something to care about. God, how could you NOT want to go to the yard and see guys like Machado and Soto and a healthy Tatis?

If Farhan does anything different going forward he has to understand he’s got to add players the fans will care about watching. This is entertainment at the end of the day. Nobody is coming to the yard to watch Estrada and Wilmet hit and nothing else, I don’t care what their record is.

LA and SD have separated themselves from the rest of the NL West. That is fact.

Where do the Giants go from here? They aren’t catching up by rummaging through the dumpster in the alley.

All I can say is that I am so thankful that Z kept this powerhouse dynasty together. Can you imagine if he’d broken it up? I mean he did threaten to by jettisoning Ruf, Rosenthal, Casali and Boyd. But in the end he kept The Core together. Now all that’s left is for our meteoric rise to the top to commence……

If you’re Alex Cobb you have to be getting particularly tired of this shit show, right? He’s been great the last 3 starts and he’s got jack to show for it.

Yesterday was tough. I can swallow Farhan not doing a big add-on deal. As I said, even with some creativity by packaging Rodon prospects with our prospects we didn’t have anything to include like Gore/Voit and the Padres just offered the better deal. But to not trade Rodon or Joc at all was just deflating, man. Why keep Rodon for 8 more meaningless starts? He has value, don’t give me this shit about *there were no offers*. Farhan did what he always does. He dumpster dove.

Couple that with the real life sadness of the passing of Vin Scully and Kat’s buddy’s wife…..then the Giants lose another game in this lost season….

it was just a very bad day.

I’m just disgusted with this Soto deal for San Diego. We DID have the prospects but SD adding Gore who has like 6 years of control left as a solid #2 starter was huge. We might not have had that capital in the end but being creative is what Z is supposed to be good at. So I will ask this, respectfully…..

What exactly is Farhan doing? I know he can dumpster dive but what else can he do? He’s just sitting on his hands watching LA and SD enrich themselves to ridiculous levels. What is he getting paid to do, exactly?

I’m just sick to death about all of this.

The most aware Flappers know I’ve been trying to win the dinner for 2 at Original Joe’s for quite some time now. Well, yesterday I qualified for the drawing.

The easy part is over. Now I gotta hope the drawing Gods smile down upon me.

One hour later. Update:

I won. I finally won.