Stix
| Carstie Clausen | Sun, Jun 30, 9:33 PM (8 hours ago) |  | |
| to me | |||
Double your pleasure, double your fun. That old commercial jingle sure came to play today. Count em. Ten two-baggers. For years I’ve maintained that you wanna have a big inning, the magic ingredient is having a team which can crack those doubles. Maybe it was revenge for last night’s Eleventh inning humiliation. Hjelle had been having an amazing, unexpected good season. But the LaBumbos got to him…bad. So who got to wear the goat collar tonight.? Show High. He went for the big bucks and the big media exposure in LaLaLand. So here’s this guy who had been pitching in FRANCE and Giants scouting picked him up. Full five for the win, but the cream was those special K’s on Ohtani. Hugely hyped got wiped.
Spencer Bivens aced his first ever MLB start. One single-shot dinger was the only damage for the evening. As a recovering journalist, I’d loved to have done the write-up on this rags to riches story. One-off? Time will tell. One thing for sure, the dude is motivated.
Okay, so the LaBumbos were down to only two super-stars, with that spark plug they stole from the Red Sox, on the I.L. list. But hey…how bout having no fewer than FIVE starters out of action? That situation is about to do the big switcharoo…soon. Will Snell smell or will he cast a spell? The latter is more probable. Robbie Ray is also about to return soon and so is Harrison. They are not the only ones. Things are gonna get complicated. After bullpen game after bully game, Los Gigantes were surviving somehow through the biggest rotation drought they have had…at least since ’58, I would guess. By the time of the A.S. Break, there’s gonna be an overload. Easy one will be sending Birdsong back to Sac-town for some more development time. He’s all of 22 and chances are good we will see him for years to come.
But then we are also looking at Corn on the Cobb returning. Oops. Do I sense Tradewinds blowing even before the end of the month?
What, who do the Giants need? Yaz and Slater are both decent players, but not much pizzazz . Luis Robert, anyone? Whitesox could use all kindsa boost. Maybe Luciano, one of the two or three higher starter prospects and some veteran presence, where the two aforementioned, perhaps Conforto as well, also inclusive of Thairo or Wilmer. Don’t look now, but SF may be looking at an embarrassment of riches. Jazz Chisholm may need a change of scenery in order to shine again. Positioning might be a snag, but the guy is dynamic. Likely he will never reach superstar status, but how bout being one of several simple stars?
So what’s with Doval.? He’s having a schizo season…too many pitches for a complete closer. Could Ryan Walker take on that role, or would it be more sensible to look elsewhere…can’t tell you who, but most Flappers will name candidates. A deal would not likely to be one on one, but maybe one of the starters, Cobb perhaps, could figure in a complex deal including prospects back and forth. Giants system is loaded with pitching…while other organizations are more heavy on position players. As we are learning this year, a solid team needs backups for the backups.
Villar may be sufficiently seasoned. Fitzgerald and Wisely are coming along nicely. Keepers. Then there’s Ramos. Losing #24 just days before the Baby Bull goes down has been heartache city for longterm fans. Last exciting outfielder was Willie’s godson…and #25 wasn’t even home-grown. Ramos is for real. He’s finally seasoned in the pipeline and now he is solid. A dawning superstar? Not impossible, but solid is more than just decent. At long last, ever since Chili Davis, the Giants have developed a truly exciting outfielder. He’s a better than average fielder, fairly quick on the base paths AND has a certain charisma. He’s exciting.
Checked out the MLB power-ratings to find the Giants still at #19…that after taking the series from the LaBumbos. Higher on the list are some squads whom the Giants have beaten.
Currently the Rodney Dangerfield of MLB, the Giants are lurking in the shadows. With a solid rotation along with a team which is gradually jelling, in large measure due to home-grown talent, there may be another Halloween Machine in the making. Solar looks to be finally coming around…adjusting to his new digs has taken a bit of time. He knows now that he doesn’t need to carry the full load of power production. Along with Heliot, Chapman has provided some key hits along with his usually stellar defense. Bailey looks to be long-term. Got a better backup catcher returning from the I.L. soon as well.
Zaidi has caught some flak during his tenure, but that situation is likely to get some adjustments. The pipeline is producing. From having one of the worst pitching staffs in MLB, it is not unlikely that by September and maybe much sooner, Los Gigantes will have one of the better ones…top ten in MLB, I would hazard. Injuries and happenstance laid them low.
Melvin may be the right manager at the right time. He appears to be a patient sort, but not the buddy-buddy doting daddy type. At 41-44, the team has hung on against all the odds. Some clever tinkering this month by the front office could yield nice returns in October.
In a team psychology sense, San Francisco is approaching takeoff mode. Last series of the season is with the Cardinals…a team which has resurrected itself recently and may also be in the Playoff race. Late September could be interesting.
Defensively, the team is vastly improved from last year’s number. Offensively, today’s blasting of the LaBumbos tells me that the team is jelling at last. Winning is infectious. With a reliable rotation…those short streaks may get a bit longer.
Facing the LaBumbos, the Braves and Cleveland over a nine game run…the competition is at its highest level. Win two more out of the next six and SF looks mildly respectable. Going 3-3 with two of the top teams in MLB would make for a 5-4 run…two-thirds of them on the road. If the Giants pull that off, maybe those “raters” on the MLB Sunday evening Power Ratings will start singing a different tune. After all, sports prognosticators may dote on the squads with the superstars, but they inevitably respect a winner.
Daily Doubles anyone?
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Love the way stix see’s the bright side of the street. Sometimes that is a hard thing to do. Losing both Mays and Cepeda was like losing part of your childhood. But that seems to be a common theme when growing older. I would love to see Z’s plan come to fruition.
yeah hope so. Maybe young players are being developed withn system
A friend convinced me to go to an Oakland Ballers game, which is where I roasted in the sun yesterday while the Giants kept hope alive. The level of play was pretty good. Not too many walks, but not a lot of wild swings, either. Some nice OF assists, a diving catch in RF, and one nifty 6-4-3 DP.
The unlimited balls and strikes challenge system was used about a dozen times or so. It was very efficient, with the ump’s calls being overturned the majority of the time, although he got a handful of them right. We sat behind home and guessed correctly which way the call was gonna go on all but two of them.
I see no reason whatsoever for not implementing some form of this system in MLB ASAP.
Celebrating my 7 year old’s birthday yesterday (and today), so just discovered how well the Giants did this weekend against the Bums. Very significant in my mind. I hope they can keep the momentum going.
SEVEN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Holy shit. I think Flav’s kid was 7 when this all started.
Yeah, and I am about to go over the hill. Kidding sort of. You have to remember – I am about 15-20 years older than Flav . . . Thank God I exercise and don’t drink or I would be loony toons.
Blade very cool. Couple kids of friends of mine either just turned 8 or are about too and they are fun to be around. I usually try and send them book for BDay and Christmas/New Years holidays. Shopping for kids books (picture ones and easy readers) is great.
Amy G writes kids books too, saw one at local Books Inc.
The other day Flavor linked to the stat about the Giants’ stolen base deficiencies. How much of a problem is this?
I looked at
https://gregstoll.com/~gregstoll/baseball/runsperinning.html
and
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/2024-specialpos_c-fielding.shtml#teams_advanced_fielding_c_baserunning
to get a rough sense of what the Giants’ run differential would look like if they stole bases and threw out runners like the average NL team.
On the defensive side, SF has given up 26 more bases than the NL average (they are at the league average for SBs allowed, 7, and CS, 2, for swipes of 3B, so I’m ignoring that). If you look at the percentage of runners that score from 1B versus 2B in the Stoll chart, you’ll see that the chances of scoring increase from about 16% with no outs to 10% with 2 outs. If you apply the more damaging 16% number, ignoring that some of those extra 26 SBs occurred with 1 or 2 outs, you get an increase of 4 runs allowed over the average NL team.
The Giants’ SB percentage is at 69%, the league average is 78. If the Giants upped their percentage to 78, they’d have 4 more stolen bases and maybe an extra run scored.
thanks James. Mr. Stoll’s chart on run expectancy is great. Noticed that with 0 outs/man on 2b, expectancy is 1.12. With 1 out and man on 3b, as happened recently when Wade Jr. grounded out to 2b and advanced runner…expectancy went down to .95.
similar to man on 1b/0 outs vs. man on 2b/1 out. Run expectancy goes down (.87 to .69) by giving up out via sac bunt.
There are a small number of situations where a bunt makes sense. If you need only one run to win a game, bunting a runner to third does increase your chance of scoring a single run by a few percentage points.
There’s a reason the sacrifice has basically disappeared and will never come back. It looks like the rule changes and bigger bases have breathed a little life into the SB. A 78% success rate presumably gives a very modest boost to overall run scoring across the league. OTOH, there are teams like the Nationals with gaudy stolen base totals who’ve been caught so many times that they’ve negated any small increase in run production they might’ve enjoyed.
Looking at the Braves’ stats, they are the team the Giants wanted to be. Middle of the pack in OPS, runs scored, and top 5 in pitching. I wonder how often a team turns around its season by going from the bottom to the top of the pitching numbers over the latter half of the season. I’d guess not very often. Walker, T Rogers X 2, Hjelle, and Miller with a combined 3.2 WAR. The team MVP.
Klay to the Mavs:(
3 years $50 mil. I’m sad he is leaving but 3 years too long. As most fans, I think he is nuts to change teams from a fan base that love you, an iconic player teammate, and a coach who gets you. Pablo to Boston ring a bell?
Yeah been following this story. Details not yet sorted out for what comes back to GS, if anything beyond some kind of trade exception. When GS was handing out longer deals to Draymond and Poole, Klay turned down $48 mil/2 years. Maybe length from Mavs sealed it but sounds like Klay and Warriors weren’t talking to each other.
so far Lacob saving ton of $$ this offseason minus Klay and Paul.
Could be one of 2 second round picks Hornets are sending Mavs in exchange for Josh Green. per Adrian Wojnarowsky
Warriors did sign FA De’Anthony Melton from Sixers. put up decent numbers (11 ppg 36% 3 pt 83% FT 4 boards per game) for Philly but only played 38 games for them (33 as starter).
Hey, Bill Walsh’s philosophy was to ALWAYS get rid of guys a year early. In Lott, Rice, and Montana’s case, it was premature, but that was how the NFL tried to slow down Jerry Jones and Eddie D. Inflicting Plan B free agency, and instituting the salary cap.
In Klay’s case, hey he was pretty much a detriment to the offense last season, and his defense isn’t what it was. Too many reach fouls and forced shots. Klay was nuts to turn down $48 mill.
But I’m sure glad he did.
James, if you think teams running roughshod on us isn’t affecting wins and losses, yer nuts.
Averages don’t mean shit when spread across the league. Those Cardinals losses were very much affected by our inability to hold runners. Those games.
What the rest of the league does doesn’t matter for shit.
Averages are an indicator, nothing more. You read WAY too much into them.
Happy for both Klay and the Warriors. Admit it . . . Klay was not happy here. Him and the fans the last couple of years have grated on each others nerves.
All I did was estimate how many more runs have been scored against the Giants beyond what a team that’s allowed 56 steals of second and thrown out 15 runners has given up. The Giants have allowed 26 more steals beyond the league average of 56. A percentage of those runners would have scored anyway, even if they hadn’t stolen, right? And of the 26 who did, a certain percentage didn’t score, right? The data from decades of baseball tell you that with a runner on first and nobody out, a team will score 47% of the time. With a runner on second, it’s 63%. The gap between those two only gets smaller with 1 or 2 outs.
I used the league average numbers for stolen bases and CS because I figured no one would be complaining or noticing if S.F. was at those numbers.
Klay played college ball at Wazzu. Not lot of NBA guys from Washington State…only one I remember offhand is guard/small forward Don Collins early 80s.
Great sports day yesterday: Giants thrashed the Dodgers, and Clark’s Indy team defeated Taurasi’s Phoenix team. Phoenix has three players on the Olympic team, but whatever. The game was in Phoenix, and the attendance was double what Phoenix usually gets.
By one rebound, Clark missed being the first rookie to get a triple double in WNBA history.
Chicago’s Reese set a WNBA record with her 10th straight double/double. In 27 years, the record was 9. Uh….OK.
Willie, quite cool. You and I (along with others here) if you recall – learned to read with the “Dick and Jane” method, i.e., also called the “look/say method.” Fast forward today, kids learn to read via the “phonics” method. This was unknown to me when Michele came home with homework where she had to identify how many sounds are in a word. For example, the word “make” has 3 sounds (WTF???) and I just guessed the teacher was asking for the syllables, which is one. Wrong. Due to me, she failed her first 3 homework assignments (exaggerating of course, as no one fails 1st grade). In any event, I had never heard of the phonics method of teaching being taught to kids today . . . oh, and guess what? There was another method I missed that came after the Dick and Jane method, but before phonics. lmao
Taking care of Michele since mid 2022 has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest challenge I have ever taken on, but I promised myself 2 things during the almost 3 years we were separated due to COVID travel restrictions: 1. I would bring her back to see my mom before she passed away of cancer; and, 2. I would raise her until she was 18 if allowed to do so by Michele’s mom and relatives in Vietnam. So far it has been working out.
Almost forgot to add . . . We are currently reading all the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Parker. Flav might still be familiar with these.
Good luck my man and have fun in summer. sounds like you’re doing fine. there was a childrens book series I liked by group that featured author Andrea Beaty with rhyming titles, like “Ada Twist Scientist” that were pretty funny and had nice message. Bookseller told me there were supposed to be one in series of each kid in class and one of teacher as well. Picture books were cool, easy readers (60 pages plus soft cover) for older kids too.
Blade, send me your address and I’ll send a book your way. short walk away to bookstore and UPS.
email wgb730sm@yahoo.com
cheers
Done . . . Thank you Willie!
As a child I was indifferent to reading until my mom gave me “Runner for the King.” The bookcover immediately drew me in. The young man running on a precarious footbridge over a huge chasm in the Andes mountains. It turns out the knotted strings he’s carrying were called a quipu, a way of sending messages, and he was literally a runner for the inca king. I remember the book did not disappoint. I finally understood how cool reading is, and became a lifelong reader.
The book cover:
https://images.app.goo.gl/3cV5KrudCW6FUQ9i9
I kept the book for decades, until its pulp paper pages disintegrated.
I kept a handful of the kids’ early books. My favorite is “Possum Come a-Knockin.” By the 400th reading, I finally got the rhythm perfected.
I was fortunate, as a kid, that there was a library within reasonable walking distance. That’s where I discovered the SF Chronicle’s green sports section, literally on green paper (how cool!), and all kinds of books. The sci/fi of Bradbury and Heinlein. Ball Four by Bouton. The pioneer novels of Wade Wellman. The Perry Mason books by Gardner. The librarian was cool and let me check out books for grown ups. I had no interest in the Hardy Boys books and stuff like that. The youth publishing market was so much smaller in those days.
My mom always subscribed to the Mercury, but I learned the same way to read (Sports section was always read first . . . no problem as my mom always went to the front page. lol).
I was never a big comic book reader (although I like the long-form graphic novels now. Lots of great work is being done with those), but Mad Magazine was essential reading. My friends and I devoured Mad Magazine. We found it way funnier and edgy than it probably actually was.
Same. Cousins in Santa Rosa turned me onto Mad magazine during a 2 week stay at their house one summer when I was 8 or 9. Their house and area was so neat compared to Sunnyvale. Lots of outdoor adventures, as they lived in an area that was undeveloped, unlike Santa Clara county, that was losing orchards and open land at an unbelievable rate in the ’60s.
Those were hilarious. 25 cents
cheap
When I was 11 or 12 my sister had me read Manchild in the Promised land. A true story of a young man growing up doing heroin in Harlem. I fell in love with reading which continues to this day!
My sis was 17 then.
As a kid I read baseball books mostly biographies but my sister turned me onto a whole other world of reading and I still love reading today. I just wish I read more and would stay off the computer. But that isn’t happening there is just too much going on in the world.
my dad gave me an old copy of Orphans in Sky when I was in 7th grade and I was hooked.
Love all these remembrances about how you guys got hooked on reading. Not certain, but is this “lost” on today’s generation?
My daughters are pretty big readers. My son not so much.