Goodbye 2024
What an utterly pathetic way for the Yankees to close out that season. One thing I took from this World Series is that it doesn’t matter how much thump you have in your line up. You have to have pitching. You have to have hitters who give you good at bats, do the little things, etc. All NY seems to do is wait around for someone to blast off from the batters box. It’s bad baseball.
And with that we have another season of The Flap in the books. This will be the 3rd Winter I have shuttered her doors. I greatly appreciated the first 2 and was ready for the following season. I am not so sure about that this time. But I won’t make any decisions now. I’ve a long Winter ahead to sort all that out.
Talk to you guys later. As usual you can always get me by email or dm me at Twitter and many of you have my cell.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Have a nice winter, and thanks.
Cheers Craig, have yourself a good one and thanks again for another year of the Flap.
Should be eventful off season with Posey in charge. See what happens and hopefully we can all meet back here again by ST.
thanks again Flav and be safe everyone.
As always, Craig, a multitude of thanks for the Flap. See you sometime on FB….
My hope is that the new FO regime will do so many amazing things — or even just one or two pretty darn good things — that you will be chomping at the bit to fire up the Flap again come springtime… 🙂
Yeah, I hope Posey actually make a difference this offseason. Maybe he can pry the checkbook out of Greggie’s cold uncaring hands.
And thanks again, Craig for another fun year on the blog.
Happy off season, Flappers.
Let’s hope Posey rights the ship and gathers a worthy new crew…
Take care Flav and Flappers . . . For folks where I live, this is an appropriate day for the off season to begin. Particularly so, with the Bums not doing their usual playoff face plant; Halloween🎃👻today; and, it being a cold, rainy, miserable day in the mountains (Pollock Pines).
last time the bums won a WS, well half a WS, a nat’l election soon followed. The world didn’t end then. Best of luck to everyone now. Especially Buster.
BTW, the Braves just traded Soler to the Angels. Giants need to stop getting this type of player FA; instead develop a continuing line of some damn MLB-quality players…
You have done an incredible job BF keeping the Flap& Crazy Flappers rolling here since 2010 which btw started the 3/5 W/S run, so timing was SPOT ON!!
Lots of pressure on Posey to start and right this ship taking on water starting with a Solid GM first and bitch slap Greggie’s pocketbook and get aggressive on F/A signings cause to compete you can’t go dumping diving anymore like Farhan always did…
So, anybody here ever heard of Zach Minasian?
I haven’t.
Doesn’t have a Wiki page. Can’t find the article I saw that Buster is choosing him. I guess his brother is GM (or something?) of the Angels….
Sounds like an asshole, should this be true . . . https://www.si.com/mlb/giants/news/mlb-age-discrimination-lawsuit-sf-giants-jeremy-shelley-zack-minasian
An assistant GM and the VP of pro scouting, neither of which I’d even heard of. But maybe that’s just me. Let’s see what baseball info starts coming out about Misasian….
Yeah, actually, it looks like he shouldn’t be involved in this lawsuit (should the SI article be true). Anyway, the clock is ticking on Buster. I am almost certain the ONLY reason for mostly crickets coming from him/Giants regarding the GM position is due to some requirement about the playoffs being in play and teams are supposed to refrain from signing Administration folks (and possibly, players too)???
Not a very exciting hire. No fresh blood anyway. Why promote from within a system manifestly shitty?
So far so staid.
Blehhhh.
Stay the course. Thousand point of light. No new taxes.
Btw Minasian and Martinez the pitching coach he promoted it sounds like there are people within the organization Posey is OK with. Next hire as an assistant GM might be different.
Wow, this Minasian thing.
I was hoping Buster would bring in a stellar, proven assistant-GM type person from the outside who could jump start this moribund franchise and its ossified development system. But, this guy has been inside it for several years. Maybe the ownership feels they brought in the outsider Farhan last time, and it didn’t work, so now they’ll try a known quantity. Really not feelin’ it. I hope I’m wrong in my disappointment, but this does not IMO bode well for the big improvements needed…
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/10/giants-to-name-zack-minasian-general-manager.html
Geez I can’t believe this hire! WTF Minasian was even hired by Farhan and is even related to Tommy Lasorda ferchrissakes!They couldn’t go outside the organization for the hire then continue this BS LA Dogpile connection?
And even worse this guy has a twin brother who’s running the LA Angeles Angels Organization and we all know how shitty they are.They couldn’t do SQUAT with Othani,Trout,Rendon etc and Othani bailed as fast as he could from those losers..
I don’t think Posey intended to go all scorched earth and FIRE EVERYONE! in his first month on the job. Nor do I envision SF signing Soto Alonso Adames and Burnes or top SP all in one off season. Nor taking down Dodgers and going right from 80 win team to one that wins 90-95 and winds up in WS. Too much to ask and too soon…for right now.
Looking forward to Del Mar racing this weekend and BC. Top riders (and trainers) in town like Flavien Prat Irad Ortiz Jr. Luis Saez Frankie Dettori John Velasquez and Joel Rosario (who had winner earlier today) joining locals.
Come on. There’s a middle ground here. This smacks of top-down meddling.
“Let’s not go crazy now! Let’s hire known entities that won’t rock the boat. Let’s hire guys that won’t ask for too much.”
Seriously not down with this move. And why not scorch the team? They have been below .500 7 of the last 8 seasons. Their draft picks are wallowing in obscurity minus a few Sabevans guys and, and, Bailey. Mr. Half-season wonder. The call-ups barely know how to do basic little-league shit. When to tag up. How to advance the runners. How to advance themselves. What base to throw to.
These last few seasons have been a comedy of errors. These are the same folks that BROUGHT all this shit here.
I have to believe that there is a vision somewhere here. Like with everything the Giants do I gotta be hopeful until I’m not. Just hope it’s not the same business model.
Well, I ain’t there. Their plan is to not spend a lot of money and try to keep the casual fans happy. Act like they are spending money when actually they are signing end-of-contract guys to catch-and-release deals. Woo hoo. Would signing Correa have fixed all our problems? No, but at least it would have been a signing to build on. Chappie isn’t quite that.
If they want to contend, they have to be bold. This is anti-bold in the worst possible way.
This totally sounds like Greggie saying keep shit in-house so we can sit on all the decisions.
I’ll wait and see what these guys do, but I’m not holding my breath for anything better than a fucking 38 year old Goldschmidt. Hey, maybe we can squeeze another year out of Verlander.
I think the FO was feeling the heat this year and you can only feed bullshit for so long. I know the TV money is big but so are the fans and the PR not good. We shall see soon enough.
nice to see Buster making moves immediately. FWIW:
https://x.com/rog61/status/1852073157491855362?s=46&t=k0FDC_rVBvlG86Y-OHTiNQ
This’ll stay open for about a week?
Asking for a friend
Sabean came up behind what’s his name in the late 90s like this. Quinn?
Even though Minasia was hired by Z, maybe there are things we don’t know about him, such as maybe not agreeing with some of Z’s methods, and he voiced his opinions to Buster. His background in scouting is key, anyway. Obviously we have to hope this isn’t more of the same Z-ness; proof will be in moves that can begin very soon now. Time will tell.
And no, they’re not going to get Soto, Alonso, Adames, and Burnes all at once, but they’d better get some equivalents of at least 2 of those… plus.
Have a great off season Flappers! Thanks as always Craig!
Who has he scouted?
See what’s what for these important dates:
Nov. 4th free agency begins, concurrent with the start of the GM meetings on November 4th through the 7th. The MLB winter meetings are scheduled for Dallas, Texas, December 9-12 (including rule 5 selections – important for roster filling).
Bottom line? I personally don’t want to see/hear crickets until fucking January like last year.
So, this guy Minasian was by title essentially the guy in charge of Pro Scouting, not draft/development. So, he was in charge of bringing in the dumpster dive turnstile players the past few years? We need massive draft/development improvement. I’m sorry, on paper, this looks like Buster wants somebody he knows to help him out, not somebody from the outside with a new approach who will turn this player development battleship around …
Like I alluded to above, particularly the first meeting (GMs) . . . DEALS HISTORICALLY GET MADE AT THIS MEETING. Let’s see how Buster and the Giants do???
remember the year Barry Bonds attended, trying to convince an AL team to let him finish his career as one of the best DHs ever? The back room bs used to smack of politics. (John Fisher fired Lew Wolff immediately after the owners meeting that followed San Jose’s final appellate loss in the antitrust case vs mlb.) But as to players, I’ll bet these days everyone basically knows what’s what before they close the doors. Sort of like the way WAR (etc) turned arbitration into an undramatic done deal, only with more moving parts.
Here’s hoping the Flap is open for business again in the Spring! A baseball season without the Flap has become an unthinkable thing!
Thanks, BF, for keeping it going so well over the years!
Dude doesn’t look super smart, but maybe that’s just me being overly critical . . . https://x.com/SFGiants/status/1852427666076659769
Kinda looks like an ex catcher to me.
This smacks to me of a “comfortable” choice. Exactly what we do not need…
What we don’t know is, how much was Z running everything? Never in 6 years heard of anything Putilo/Pitulo did… nor anything about what Minasia did. Minasia was, what, 2nd in charge? of pro scouting, but we don’t know if all the boring and ineffective waiver wire and dumpster pickups were Minasia’s doing, or all Z. Maybe Minasia felt shackled in that role and he’s actually brilliant and will be great. Haha. Maybe.
Like your style Paul, you might be onto something with this mysterious GM that nobody knows anything about! Shackles are now taken off so I’ll give him alittle leeway until some good moves are made and if he ends dumpster diving that would give him bonus points with a disgruntled fan base..
Trump giving blow jobs in public . . .
https://x.com/ananavarro/status/1852687230063476779
Now, I have seen everything (I think).