A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

What a delightful Niner win yesterday. CMC has made all the difference and it will be interesting to see if Jimmy and Kyle can screw this up with FOUR stud offensive options once Deebo gets back.

Game 3 tonight in Philly.

Feels like a loss in LA today but this team’s surprised me before.

Breeders Cup cappin’ week gents I’m gonna be knee deep in it so if I’m preoccupied

that’s why.

Dusty at the helm as his team blows a big lead in a World Series game….hmmmm where I heard this tale told before?

I wonder if, at some point, we stop talking about it being bad luck for Dusty?

The GREAT Richard Dreyfuss turns 75 today. If you haven’t watched Let it Ride before and you want a nice pick me up, I highly rec’d it. Made in the 80’s it still holds up remarkably well today…..

Ok, are we doing this yet? Goddamn that was a lot of waiting around. Game 1 now probably favors the pitchers cause they’re used to sitting around like this. Still excited to watch the series. Great match up.

One interesting thing about this series is that I have absolutely no idea which way it will go. Houston hasn’t lost a post season game yet and the Phillies are the hottest team in the post season. So, who you like?

Regarding the Flap. I think I have an idea about how to end it but I’m pretty slammed with lots of stuff right now and don’t want to feel pressure to drop the hammer on a specific day. So the end of the World Series is no long the drop dead date.

That is the question.

I go back and forth on this one. My brain gets all the reasons not to give this dude 400 large but if it actually happened I’d be stoked. Just like the rest of you. Admit it.

I still don’t think it has a chance of happening because getting used for leverage by other agents is just how we roll.

But it’s fun to think about…

I am absolutely rooting for the Astros to win. Nobody deserves a ring more than Dusty Baker. The cheating scandal pissed me off at the time but that’s the funny thing about time…it fades a lot of shit away. I just can’t get worked up about it anymore. Yes, it will be displeasing to see Altuve smile and accept a ring. But Dusty is the man, man. A forever Giant who I will always love.

What we have learned this post season, and I guess we already knew this, is that it doesn’t matter how good your offense was in the regular season. In the post season, none of it matters. I think I read that the Yankees are hitting .128 in this series. LOL. The Dodgers WISH they were hitting .128 right now……

Ok here’s my idea with CMC today: use him as a decoy. Sure, run a few plays to him but his real value today could be keeping double teams off Deebo. Why not, right? Why just sit on the sidelines with a hoodie on? He doesn’t need to know the plays to be a decoy.

I am SO STOKED about this CMC news. Went to bed early, woke to it. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Look, they just picked up the most dangerous overall RB in the league. And I clearly don’t understand anything about draft capital cause people are sweating a 3rd, 4th, and 5th? Are you kidding me? We just blew three first round picks on what is likely to be a bust. CMC is a proven special player.
Kyle must be creaming in his jeans right now. First of all, this gets Deebo out of the backfield, a completely played out idea. You can put CMC in the wildcat. Put him in the slot. Keep him in the backfield. The possibilities are ENDLESS.

He’s healthy. Kyle’s has no excuses.

Let’s roll.

There is no way the Flap could properly end without a nice long thread from this man. Stix, for a long time we wondered if you were dead—with nothing but a few online articles about your terribly unfair incarceration to find on the internet, it was a fair assumption. Then you came back–something Twinfan and probably some of the others were never able to do. Your *resurrection* was one of my favorite things about this long run the Flap has been on. Thanks for everything you did for the guys here. You showed us that hope can be a real thing. It’s good to believe in something once in a while…..

Carstie Clausen	Wed, Oct 19, 6:44 PM (11 hours ago)
to me, carstie

Flav:  Guess maybe I’ve been quietly mourning the immanent demise of the Flap.  You’ve done one helluva job keeping all this together on a friggen DAILY basis for all these years.  Congratulations, kudos and best wishes.  As the publisher of Minnesota’s most broadly read monthly newspaper Common Sense: A Northwoods Journal for a total of 56 editions, including doing half the writing (or more) almost all the photography, all the bookwork and general accounting AND servicing the nation’s second longest paper-route from May of ’73 to Jan. of ’79…I probably could write a book about burnout.

 So after seeing “where’s stix” from WilleDav and an “I dunno”, from you, maybe it’s high time to not only surrender, but also fess up.  You see, I’m not only a FANatic (SFG’s exclusively) but also a maniac.  Well, maybe not the type of that ilk that most folks could roll right off their tongues, but as someone who gets caught up in manias.  Over the past nearly 3 months it was an average of six hours per day lovingly toiling at the old homestead, totally rebuilding a freestanding rubble-stone wall around the perhaps 160 foot perimeter of the central garden.  No mud!  So first, it was digging out the old wall, which was built onto the oval edge of the central garden, as that was the only way I could eliminate the combination of reed-canary and quack grasses, accompanied by goldenrod which had infiltrated the garden from the “moat” around the whole raised-bed structure.   When the goldenrod and reed-canary roots mutually entangle it may be somewhat akin to two drunk octopuses fucking. After that, it was assembling pebbles beneath the new combination of stones so that the infiltration would not be so apt to take over during my five plus years of “vacation”.

 The rocks had come from several townships in my county and overlapped to about three other jurisdictions.  Happening mostly in the 70’s and somewhat in the early 80’s with the able assistance of the Bullshit Valley Special (my now on blocks ’49 Chevy pickup; I was the biggest rock pile thief in all of Clearwater County.  One time as was loading up at a rock pile I’d spotted in an abandoned cow pasture, the owner came up in his slightly newer rig and his first words were “Oh, you’re TAKING rocks.  You can take all of them if you want to and there are more in my fields if they’re not enough”.

 A week ago yesterday was the most recent adventure, as the weather was about to take for the worse, from 75 degrees last Tuesday to 15 above (thank goodness for that) yesterday morning.  All at the same time, by late Wednesday I got the first symptoms of the worst cold (and longest-blasting) during my 78 years.  No energy.  Brainfog.  Still minor hangover-type symptoms, but most of energy is back and no longer need to sleep more than 12 hours per 24.

                                                                                                                                                — A Preview of Coming Attractions —

 Now for my main course, the future of  Los Gigantes.  Nice to see the LaBumbos crash and burn.  Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of the best athletes big money could buy to attempt to finally get another championship.  Next year they will hafta gaze up at Oracle and see those 2010,2012 and 2014 Halloween Machine banners and grunt and moan.  At least they have the consolation of making the Big Buck$.  Roberts must be pulling his hair out and the Googs hafta be wondering why they paid all that $$$ for the first Championship since’88, obtain that highest run-differential in multiple decades and still fall flatter than the top of a pool-table.

 So here’s the beginning of the good news.  Mark your long-range calendars: 2024 should maybe be circled.  Wouldja believe an all homegrown outfield featuring both speed and power?  A dream too good to be true ever since the strapped owner traded off a passel of high level outfielders back there in the Dark Ages following #24’s retirement and all those gawd-awful trades.

 Speed?  Hard to distinguish between Vaun Brown, a 24 y.o. Tenth round signee from clear back in ’21 and Grant McCray, 21, who was a 2019 pickup, but dealt with injuries over his post-Covid intro in 2021. Brown vaulted all the way from San Jose at low A, through high at Eugene and finished off at Richmond in AA and amassed 43 steals over those 3 levels.  McCray bounced from S.J. up to Eugene and guess what???  43 steals.  Two of em with Willie Mays stolen base levels.  So which one bats lead-off? McCray could get the nod with his nine triples, but then his 170 whiffs vs. 67 BB’s signals a need to learn to be more discerning at the plate…but then again at 21 and likely to face some pretty formidable Eastern League pitching at Richmond, he maybe needs some personal attention from our new G.M. who is said to be a player development specialist, as well as daily suggestions from his hitting coach and perhaps also if the Flying Squirrels possess a veteran catcher.  One shouldn’t sniff at a 383 OBP, but compared with Brown’s sixth best in MiLB sizzling .437, perhaps the first nod would go to Brown for game openers.

 Youth?  Had yet to mention the Giants’ #3 prospect Luis Matos who will not even achieve legal drinking age until early next year.  By baseball standards of today, Matos is not at all a big dude, what at 5’11” and a wispy 160 pounds.  However, when the kid from Venezuela launches into one, those skyrockets could match the production of many an MLB slugger.  He had a rough season, relatively speaking, at Eugene this past season as a quad injury had messed badly with his performance at the plate, as compared for last year at San Jose, where he wowed Baby Giants fans with his slashing stick.  In the latter part of the N.W. League season, he rebounded with some drive and then his first few days in the Arizona prospect league he started off with a bang, sagged for a spell and later on caught his rhythm once again.  Most serious Giants fanatics already know quite a bit about Matos so I won’t add any more details.  Likely in ’23 his season once again commences at Eugene, but a quick return to form might land him in Virginia where the warm, humid summer breezes may enable the tropical tornado to strut his stuff.

 Back to Brown who will begin at Richmond, let’s fill in some more stats.  Oh, yes, power.  Well, the poor guy could not even slam a couple dozen dingers as he topped out at 23.  Ah, not too bad after some of the outfield “products” the Giants developed in the past bunch of years. However, when we have a look at that sterling .437 OBP, topped in the minors by only five other guys, we can all take note.  Now, throw in his SP of 623 which was third best in all the minors and we conclude with an OPS at 1.060 adding up to numero Uno in MiLB and we have a winner.  Ditto with his .346 B.A.  Yeah, I can see that guy leading off for S.F. in the not very distant future as a threat not dissimilar to Ricky Henderson with that speed/power combo.  If Brown stays healthy and can handle E.L. pitching, he may even get to skip Sacramento and make The Show at some point in the second half.

 Still young and amenable to upgrades, McCray had him a good year at those two levels. He excelled at S.J. where he set a baby Giants record as their first 20-20 HR’s & SB’s since that city replaced Fresno as the neighborhood development center.  His 897 OBP at the two levels, with a .a514 S.P. setting the pace.  Perhaps Grant could bat immediately after Brown in the two-hole as he scored a total of 104 runs this past season on 141 hits, with 20 doubles bringing him to 52 XBH’s and contributing to his 79 RBI’s.

 Batman and Robin were known as the Dynamic Duo.  Could SF go into the ’24 season with a Dynamic Trio in the O.F.?  Could happen…and if it doesn’t there are a couple more outfielders in the pipeline who look promising.  Exciting and dynamic outfield.  So the logical take on 2023 outfield acquisitions by Zaidi and Peppermint Pete might be limited to two lines of approach.  They could focus on a relatively inexpensive power-bat who is in his mid to late 30’s, a Ruf replacement so to speak.  Or…they could offer someone like Brandon Nimmo a front-loaded two year contract to the 30 y.o.  Mutual options.  Absence of a no-trade clause.

 First base and shortstop along with a second ace (DeGrom?) may be the likely acquisition targets.  Maybe add in a competent veteran (preferably L.H) setup man and a post-season run centering on 90 wins could be in the offing in ’23.  Should Harrison smother E.L. hitters early along, a rotation consisting of Webb, DeGrom and Harrison could bring on a 2010 S.F. surprise.

…at the tag end comes my sneaky part.  I’m hoping this vision of the future might help make a couple or more of the Flappers to get up a weekly replacement as a cooperative venture.  Otherwise…Man, I’m sure gonna miss you guys.

  -stix

Last night was a good time to lament the Beltran trade. Me? I haven’t sweated that for a second. You have to give up something to get something and Sabean went for it at the break in 2011, that’s all you can ask for in a GM. He couldn’t have known that Beltran would save his best hitting for after they got eliminated (or close to getting eliminated, that’s what I remember about his time here). He also couldn’t have known that he was kind of a bitch, too, as the Cheating Scandal showed.

Wheeler is one of the rare starting pitching prospects who pan out. It’s cool to see him still bringin’ it after all these years. Of course I wish he had stayed a Giant but at the time the trade made sense–risk/reward that just didn’t pan out.

Rainout last night in NY. Not sure what weather looks like today. Man, retractable roofs should be on every stadium back east…….

Dubs today! Woo Hoo!!! I heard on the radio today that NEXT year the luxury tax on them would be 450 million–not what they’d pay tax on. That’s the tax! Incredible figure and another testament to Lacob and the way he owns the team. We are so lucky to have Joe Lacob and his group.

Yo, if you’re gonna rock the baby all the way around the bases you better win or have won the damn game. I enjoyed that as much as anyone but now that it’s a loss Naylor looks like a chump and Cole looks like a hero. Can you imagine if someone did that to Bumgarner? He would have murdered him before he got to 3rd base.

Not much to say about the Niners except “yuck”.

Dubs season starts tomorrow. Oh my god, it would be incredible if Draymond did it again, right? Just laid Poole out right there on the floor in front of the entire Golden State crowd? I’m not condoning what he did it was terrible and he should have been suspended. But my sick mind goes to “dudes, what if he did it again? How epic would that be?” It would be the MOMENT of all MOMENTS.

I don’t particularly like the Padres but I like their uniforms and I do love it that they’re doing all this without that me-first doofus liar Tatis. Listening to Dodger fans on twitter is hilarious, they’re sooooooo MAD! LOL.

Check out this pic Diggity texted me. Was the writing on the wall for LA last night in this picture? I swear to god, San Dawg is Bat Man. This angle even somehow has the bat signal lighting across the field. This pic is straight out of Gotham City, I’ve never seen San Diego look like this.

And here’s our man closing out the deal. Fitting to have a Flapper IN THE HOUSE to watch this go down. I’m just gonna assume that’s a Giants cap under there, dawg.

I know this year sucked and it was utterly forgettable. But seeing the Dodgers go down in flames (again) is so satisfying. My biggest fear about shutting down the blog was that it was going to be right after an LA World Series win. What a stupid unnecessary thing to worry about. LMAO, LA closing out the deal in the post season. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Watching the Padre game last night is one of the reasons the blog is shutting down. Man, I miss that energy. It’s tough to watch other fans enjoy that and we are still just wandering in the wilderness. Yeah, yeah, we got 3 and *if I died tomorrow, etc…* It still doesn’t change the fact that with each passing year we get farther and farther away from that feeling we had so many years ago.

Gonna be very surprised if the Yankees can pull this off. They have a very Met-sy feel to them. Of course it is Cleveland and I’ve never seen a team from that cow town that I didn’t dislike. Still, for this series, I can root for them.

Hoping to get an update from the Great San Dawg on the vibe in San Diego tonight.

Enough said. Still, and always.

Only thing there is to say about that Ray move in the 9th is that if you’re gonna do that it had BETTER work. He’d come in as a reliever 1 time in 10 years. Unacceptable. And it’s not like they were bringing in prime MadBum. Ray got lit up last week by Toronto.

I don’t know, managers outthink themselves sometimes. They all want to be Bruce Bochy.

But there is only 1.

I was so accurate with the first round (1-3) I’m sure you’re all anxiously awaiting this round’s predictions.

I’ll go ATLANTA, CLEVELAND, SEATTLE and LA.

Who you got?

Easy win against an inept offense. Or maybe that’s just how our D made them look? Credit to Jimmy who was fine, he avoided the tragically stupid 3 plays a game he usually makes that we have to overcome to win.

No baseball today? What the hell?

If you didn’t like the Mariners before I bet you like them now. Wow, what a fun game to watch.

NFL today, I don’t have a feel for how the Niners will do but assuming they will have to rely heavily on their defense and some Baker miscues.

I must admit I enjoyed watching Scherzer gets smacked around. For no real reason I’ve never liked the Mets. And I think Showalter and all his stupid rules are pretty played out.

Another thing I enjoyed about the games yesterday (despite the lack of runs scored): every team has at least a few hitters in their line up that I get really excited to watch in the box. The Giants don’t have a single hitter I get excited to watch in the box.

Farhan has a LOT of work to do.

Team ERA rankings for the post season teams:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11,15,18

That surprised me, I guess, since we are so conditioned to believe this is a blast-off league.

________________________________

I am simply astounded at how bad Russell Wilson has gotten seemingly overnight. And fans will turn quickly against him. He’s got probably the fakest personality in the league. If he’s going to suck too, man, he ain’t gonna stand a chance in that town.

Thankfully, Macdog has gotten to the bottom of this 1975 mystery and figured out why we only played 161 that year…..lqtm. See? This is why the Flap is so great. I honestly went to sleep wondering about that and this morning I get an answer.

Let’s take a look at the post season bracket and kick that shit around for a while seeing as how the 2022 post season is gonna be the Flap’s swan song. In terms of *winning it all* I typically go against teams with the best records in baseball just because this isn’t like the NBA, literally any team can beat any other team. But this is the wild card. There is no dominant record team. Seattle is the easy underdog pick in the AL, I think they’ll get past Toronto. By the way, whoever gets to play the Yankees will probably beat them (due to my theory above). I don’t have an opinion about TB or Cleveland except that I’m rooting for TB because I hate Cleveland’s fans.

NL wild card is trickier. I’m gonna say St. Louis gets by Philly and the Mets take care of the Padres. I honestly don’t even know how the Mets lost the division to the Braves, they are the better team. That’s actually a pretty decent reason to take the Padres to be honest with you. But no, i’ll go with the Mets.

So I’ll take TB, Seattle, St. Louis and The Mets.

How do you guys see the WC shaking out?

_____________________

Also, today is my twitter birthday. I am not sharing my *big day with anyone on Twitter. Just here. What does that tell you? 🙂

Just sat down with my coffee like I always do to try to figure out a topic for today’s thread. They usually come quite easily to me. And then I realized this: today is the FINAL Giants game. Wow. We been at this site for 13 years, let’s say that’s 2100 games or so. Throw in another hundred post season games or whatever….

And today is the last one.

I just checked and today is the 4,235th thread at the Flap. How many of those were about the Giants?

A buddy of mine this weekend said “the site says ‘a place to talk about Giants baseball’. Why don’t you just talk about that? Why is it often about other stuff?”

I had to properly admonish him. This place started as a place to talk about Giants baseball and then it grew, organically, into so much more. I miss all the recipe talk. And while I think most of you have borderline terrible taste in music (The Beatles still suck) and I can’t stand the youtube videos that clog up the thread I love that you guys like kicking around music topics. Or any topic. The Flap is like your neighborhood bar….

Simply put, this place has become it’s own community. It’s not really about the Giants anymore. It’s a place people come to be a part of something. And part of me is really sad that I’m taking that away…..

But, the old cliche is true, nothing lasts forever. Let’s have a blast with this final post season with or without the Giants in it. And talk about whatever you want.

That’s how we roll.

___________________________________________

there is no better or worse goodbye, but this one made me smile.

pawliekokonuts said, on October 5, 2022 at 2:16 pm (Edit)

The Last Lineup: A Valediction (Not a Waltz).

Batters up. We have waded through low and high, surmounted valleys and mountains. Our driest desert blossomed into florid hope just as JD translated to Just Done, Joyful Dream, Jubilant Days. And as yes morphed from Yaz, so we were slated to craw a last goodbye as the afternoon sun blinded the batter but not our memories. Oh, we basked in a villa of victory three golden times (actually, infinitely more, beyond measure, above analytics). No one proctored our journey as we forded raging rapids, never bartering with Fate, never succumbing to blank despair, bravely bubbling within the brevity of this short life. Ars longa, vita brevis. Ars longa, the long goodbye. The everlasting shadow. Adios, Flapota!

Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that Deebo’s epic td run to glory almost didn’t happen. That ball was an inch away from being tipped by the CB and likely run back for a pick 6. But, thank god that didn’t happen. It was a typical terrible throw from Jimmy but not one of his worst ever.

The Giants lost a positively forgettable game.

Regarding Twitter— I totally respect not participating on that site if you think it’s the cause of many evils in the world. But it isn’t all bad. It’s fantastic for gathering information quickly. Is there disinformation? Sure, but you’d have to be an idiot to not see the difference between the two. Facebook is awful but I like seeing pics of people I haven’t seen in 20 years. So it’s not all bad either.

Just follow the people you want to follow and you can bypass most of the bullshit.

Got to catch the final 1//2 inning yesterday on the radio. Miller and Flem were joking about how the Giants needed the auto runner to finally get someone into scoring position. A walk and a couple of ground balls later, we secured the victory.

I think it was Loo who recently said something like “this year is utterly forgettable with literally no memories.” Think about it. It’s true. It’s like this season never happened.

In the comment section below, without thinking about it for more than a few seconds, list off your 1 or 2 favorite memories for this season…..

If you can’t do it say that too.

Another win. Another day we aren’t eliminated. Both the teams in front of us won, at this point they’d have to lose out and us win out to get there. Not even really worth thinking about but we need a thread, right?