A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Richard Sherman is doing his usual post-dust up, mop up job of another one of his cry baby melt downs. Sherman is a smart guy, he’s quite good at diverting attention away from his behavior. This time it’s racism that was the REAL problem. All the idiots on twitter who vented their racist ways towards him. Is he really SHOCKED that racism is still alive in America? Of course it is. We saw a good example of it from our ex-resident Dennis the other day. There are ignorant people in the world. They aren’t going away.

But racism is not the issue with what Sherman did. It is a separate issue. The common theme always attached to Sherman: It’s always about what someone else did to him. He talked about *being in the zone* and some other stuff. What I wish Rachel Nichols had asked him is this: “Richard, why do so many people want to punch you in the face?” Is Trent Williams racist? Did Crabtree push your helmet after your fake-ass handshake because he’s racist?

Professional athletes are role models. They are role models no matter how many times they say they aren’t role models. And yes, real life adults in children’s lives can do damage control after outbursts like Sherman’s, we can have conversations with our kids about sportsmanship, how to win and lose with dignity; we can talk to our kids about all of that. But at the end of the day, they still admire him. They look up to him. He’s in the freaking NFL, that alone trumps most of the things we tell our kids about what is WRONG with Sherman. They see the money, the fame, the hair, the WIN and they look up to that.

Yes, he went to Stanford. Everyone knows that. There are a lot of smart people who went to Stanford who I don’t admire or look up to.

Sportsmanship is one of the most important things you can teach a youngster. It’s not always innate. And guys like Richard Sherman just make it harder on the “real people” in the world who are assigned the day to day job in the trenches with teaching kids the right way to win and the right way to lose. Screw him.

This Friday is the deadline for Masahiro Tanaka to make his decision on his employer for 2014. There are five or 6 teams in contention (reportedly) with the Dodgers being the front runners. Arizona, the Cubs, the Yankees, Seattle and possibly the White Sox have made or are making an offer to him. He wants to live on the west coast and his wife is a wannabe pop star so you would think that all signs point to him signing with the Dodgers. Although the Cubs are offering the most money. It sucks that 2 of the 5 (or 6) teams interested are from our division.

Whoever gets him will be significantly upgrading their rotation.

Dead zone. Think I might go scour around for a new BBOTD to perk me up.

Let it go….and with 2 time outs remaining, I let go…..

And so we embark on the worst part of the year. I couldn’t care less about the Super Bowl, I hate both of those teams. I’ve feigned my way to half hearted interest in the NBA. But that’s not going to last. Is hockey on strike again? Hockey. lol.

Sure, there’s fanfest and pitchers and catchers report after that. But for me, this is dead in the eye of the haiku storm that hits like clockwork once a year…..

Today is the biggest game I can ever remember for me as a fan. I say “today” because there’s no way I’ll be able to focus on typing tomorrow. Too nervous. I could probably focus on “breathing” tomorrow. I hope.

I HATE the Seattle Seagulls. I despise their fans, at least a dozen or so who call me a close friend. And that’s a good example of how we live our lives in boxes.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been alive for 5 Super Bowl wins. I remember each one like they were yesterday. I was talking to one of my buddy’s kids the other day, a 12 year old boy, and I was struck with his passion for the Niners. He was wearing a Bill Ring jersey that his rad dad scored for him and he was wondering with wide eyes what it would be like to win a Super Bowl this year. And it was at that moment that I realized how many Niner fan kids don’t know what that’s like. They watch their dad’s strut around in their over-sized Niner jackets, bota bags in tow, giving their buddies knowing dude head nods about better days from the 80’s. But those kids don’t know what it’s like to have their team win a Super Bowl. They don’t know the glory. The destiny.

It’s the same now as it was then. When it happens, you just start running. Usually with a crazy smile on your face, sometimes without shoes. Always with abandon. And you just run. And when you stop and don’t know what to do next, you start running again cause you gotta get back to where you started. Only an idiot without shoes keeps running away forever.

Each step is another stride away from your losing ways. Losing days. Every heart beat is the joy of your new life as a winner, for eternity. “Flags Fly Forever” is one of the best things anyone has ever said.

I want all those young Niner fans flying through life flaglessly to come join the Eternity Party. #questfor6

Belt asked for 3.6 mil and the Giants offered 2.05 mil. The Giants haven’t gone to arbitration with a player since 2003 (AJ Jackass) and there’s no way they’re going to start now. They’ll hit 2.75 mil, maybe a touch more. And Belt deserves it. He developed into one of the premiere NL first basemen last year.

I’m pretty optimistic about the O next year. We have a healthy Pagan. A slimmed down-contract-year-driven Panda. A paid Pence. An ascending Belt. And Crawford is only going upwards on both sides. Morse. A former MVP who is 26. I’ll tell ya, if Scoots can make a fist, we might just have a team that can score in the high-600’s runs. Maybe the low 700’s? I can’t emotionally tolerate that threshold. Back down to the high 600’s. Better.

The Dodgers are in serious negotiations with Tanaka.

Feel better?

What just about everyone wanted has finally happened and expanded replay will start next year. It covers pretty much everything you can think of EXCEPT the “neighborhood” play at 2nd base–and that’s great that they left that alone. While I was listening to Tolbert detail it on KNBR this afternoon I was left wanting to know about the logistics of a challenge. He wasn’t clear so I called up KNBR and asked the question myself. “Craig from Palo Alto….”

I wanted to know what would prevent a manager from going out there to argue and, essentially, stall for time while someone from the team reviewed the play to see if it was challenge worthy. Without a time clock there is simply too many ways to stall the game while the team checks to see if the play is challenge worthy or not.

Tolbert agreed this was a great point and it touched off a discussion between he and Ralph-Mouth that was still going on as I drove into my driveway and had to turn the radio off.

I hope MLB has got this figured out because I’m envisioning the game getting extended WAY out with blustery manager field storms designed only to waste enough time until they get the *yay or nay* from the dugout to throw the challenge flag.

By the way, you get one challenge that you can use and if you lose you’ve lost your challenge. If you win, you get another one. Then you’re done. The most you can challenge is 2 plays per game. After the 7th inning the umpire crew decides if a play gets reviewed or not. Presumably, you could still use your challenge after the 7th if you still have one.

SO what do you guys think of expanded replay?

First reaction to the 7 year/215 mil Kershaw deal: I’m not really sweatin’ the Rowand deal anymore. Or the Zito deal (though, in the end, that one was worth it to me).

I’ll give the Dodgers credit for one thing: at least they aren’t doling out a stupid-mega deal like this to a guy who’s turning 32 (see: the Angles). This deal is OVER when he’s 32. So at least they will get the best years of his arm over the course of the deal. Unless he gets hurt. Which is a definitely possibility. He’s already tossed 1,180 innings at the big league level. And he probably tossed double that in his years before MLB. And getting hurt is what pitchers do best. So…..whatever, he’ll probably be fine.

This deal isn’t news, at least in the way it affects the Giants. This is a player the Dodgers already had and there was no indication he was ever going to leave. The Art Dealers didn’t get better with this move.

It’s time to give Sabean some credit. With each passing stupid mega deal that gets signed I appreciate more and more how he puts together contracts. He gets ahead of the market because he knows where it’s going and because of that he doesn’t have to throw out the mega deals anymore. Anyone think Pence could have gotten more money somewhere else? Hell yes he could have, especially after seeing what Ellsbury and Choo got. Timmy got 2 years/35 mil and I guarantee you he could have gotten more if he’d waited. At least in number of years. And Morse? That was a brilliant signing.

Kyle Crick better be the real deal once he gets out of A-ball or we are in line for a LOOOOONG string of years of losing the NL West….

You know, when you look at the all time home run list it’s pretty condemning of the steroid guys. Six of the top 14 on the hr list are known cheaters. And I don’t count Hank Aaron since, according to things I’ve heard, almost everyone was taking greenies. But Bonds, A-Fraud, Sosa, McGwire, Palmeiro, and Manny were all pumped up on that stuff. And while Frank Thomas can look down upon those six with disdain I’m not certain that he wasn’t taking something performance enhancing. Are you?

Question for those that have been to the Hall of Fame: Is there any memorabilia anywhere in that joint related to the six guys I listed above? A bat? A ball? A signed scorecard? Anything? Because if the Hall of Lame is profiting even one cent off of anything produced by those six players then the whole place is a joke and should be closed up or torn down.

And so it has come to this. Back to Seattle. For the life of me I can’t figger out why all new stadiums don’t get built the way they built CenturyLink Field. Why WOULDN’T you want to maximize home crowd noise? Another topic for another time….

I don’t have a problem with end zone celebrations, never did. I enjoy them. TO whipping out a sharpie and signing autographs was one of my all time favorites. And I loved the Price Fielder bowling pin thing (though only in hindsight). Having said that, the constant shit-talking going on in NFL games these days has gotten old, fast. There’s just way too much “my dick is bigger than yours” going on and it’s disrupting the game.

Now, take a quick time out and compare that to baseball players who decide to throw down if you flip your bat a couple of feet too far or if you admire a home run for a nano second too long. I’m trying to imagine what it would look like if I celebrated winning a big pot at the El Dorado the same way football players talk sh!t to each other these days. “What now bitches!” And then I go over the top and chest bump the pit boss out of the poker room and into the video poker machines outside. My bad.

There has to be a middle ground, right? I mean, they’re all professional players getting paid to play a game. And yet there’s never been a wider chasm between the two sports in terms of how players communicate with each other between the lines…..

I’m secretly happy we’re going back up to Seattle. The way Navarro Bowman put the Stick to sleep was a way better burn out than a fade away. I didn’t want to see another game get played there. Plus, we now get to go into Seattle and break their faces. I’m not sure or confident that the Niners win that game. I think they will. Or could. But the sheer drama and energy that will pulsate through that stadium is almost too much too consider.

Manning vs Brady in the AFC championship. Niners head back to Seattle for the NFC championship. It has never been this good on both sides of the conferences with 2 games to go before the Super Bowl. Seriously, name another year that was this epic. I can’t wait for next weekend.

I’ve been watching the Panda fit-pics making the rounds on Twitter. Good for him. Here’s what he looks like today (well, a few days ago):

Here’s what he looked like before:

Well, it’s nice to see that he’s done what we all knew he was going to do: get in shape for money. I’m excited because it means our 2014 offense gets a boost. Of course, it would  have been nice to get a  boost last year. But whatever, let’s just stay in the positive and hope for the best. And by *hope for the best* I mean if Sabean gives this guy a 5 year 100 mil deal in the Spring, I’ll puke. He’s gonna get fat again. Book it.

A good, solid mockery of the BBWAA is making the rounds on the internet. And they deserve it. There is no reason that covering 140 games of baseball a year should automatically qualify you to vote on who goes to the Hall of Fame and who doesn’t. So who SHOULD be able to cast a vote?

Former players? This could work if they were players who played in the era of HOF-eligible player. But what would count as “played in the era”? How many years would you need to qualify? And what if you played your entire career in the other league?

Fans? No way. Then it gets turned into an all-star vote and you’d have way too many “Marvin Benard’s” getting in.

A panel of 9 voters? Kinda like a Supreme Court. Not sure who the 9 would be. I still think 9 (or 12 or whatever) would be better than the 571 or so that get to cast a vote now).

I also think that no matter who gets a vote, it has to come from people who saw the player actually play. You can’t just look at the back of a baseball card AND make a silly determination of character when you didn’t watch the player play regularly. So if you need this as a qualification, who gets to vote? Writers who covered the player during their career? And what happens if the writer is dead or in the loony bin? Does he/she still get a vote?

Thoughts?

I was mildly amused by Deadspin’s pub stunt of buying a Hall of Fame vote from one of the BBWAA writers last November. Deadspin gave the vote to their readers and the results weren’t interesting. Just the fact that they did it was interesting. It was a clever way of showing how dated the HOF voting process has become. There are 571 writers out there with a HOF vote. I wonder how many of them get sold every year? I wouldn’t think it would be too difficult to buy off a voter. And do you know how they submit the vote? In this day and age where electronic voting with personal codes and encrypted emails are the norm, the BBWAA asks you to “mail or fax” your vote in. No possibility for tampering there, right?

The Hall of Fame is the last line of defense for these writers. It’s their way of exacting control and power over the sport. Barry Bonds blew them off for an interview? Oh, they’ll get their revenge. The HOF vote allows these writers to have the last word. It gives them relevancy once a year. I can just imagine them sitting back at home with a beer and watching the internet explode over the results of each voter’s card. You can almost hear them collectively cackle at the chaos on twitter.

The hallowed halls of the Hall of Fame are getting less and less hallowed with each passing year….

…. and I couldn’t care less. I’ve glazed over a few articles written by pontificating writers who are still yammering on about *character still matters* like they know the character of the men on the ballot. They know nothing. The only thing they know for sure are the numbers on the back of their baseball cards. And that’s all the hall of fame should ever have been about. Factoring other things in, things that are assessed with conjecture, was always the wrong way to do it. Because once you exclude one player for cheating or lying or just being an overall bad dude but you let in another player who lied, cheated or was an overall bad dude but you didn’t know they were, the whole system for entry needs to be re-evaluated.

If you don’t like a guy because of how he got to 700+ home runs, that’s fine. But you don’t know how he got there any more than you know how Maddux got to 355 wins. If Maddux was beating his kids after every one of those wins would you still vote him in? If he was taking Adderall without a prescription, would he get your vote? Once you start evaluating character you go down a road that has no ending. You don’t know how you got there and you don’t know where you’re going. Because in the end, you simply “don’t know” unless you are the person you’re voting for. And they can’t vote for themselves.

You can’t have a condition for entry related to character if you have even a single liar, cheater or overall bad dude already elected into the hall of fame. Whether you know they are or not, their inclusion invalidates that condition. It just does.

Ryan Theriot retired yesterday. Officially. We probably could have used him last year but that’s not what Theriot is all about. He wanted to spend time as a full time dad more than he wanted to keep playing baseball. I remember Krukow being pretty hard on his desire to *quit* last year saying that in 5 years Theriot will deeply regret his decision to stop playing. Kruk said “all players” miss playing once they stop. I think that’s a classic Kruk-centric comment. He thinks every ball player is exactly the same. He’s wrong, obviously.

I hope Theriot has invested wisely. He made a little over 8 million in salary, not sure what % went to his agent or if he invested in anything that went bad. It can’t cost much to live in Louisiana though. That’s where he’s from, I don’t know for certain that he moved back there. Although likely, he probably never left.

I think Ryan Theriot ended a career in possibly the best way you could ever end one: with The Slide. Sorry I couldn’t find a short link to it, here’s a video to the 2012 highlights. There’s an annoying song playing in the background plus a loud Red Bull ad at the start (I miss the old red bull ads–stick figures that quietly get wings). At the 3:51 mark you get to watch Theriot slide off into retirement like a kid rocketing down a water slide in his back yard with his buddies.

I bet Theriot had a lot of fun with his kids last Summer.

“Tomorrow morning will feature pussy all over the top of my bed as those little beasties are heat seekers and also go for soft places to hang out. It may be a task just to get out from under cover so I can get up and feed the stoves…” –Stix

That is one of the greatest consecutive sentences ever written here or maybe anywhere.

As I’m typing this, it’s 51 degrees outside. But that’s in the shade so it’s skewing the actual outdoor temp a bit. 🙂

This weekend it’s all about football and yesterday was epic. Alex Smith was brilliant. I was most impressed with his ability to improvise and make something out of nothing, whether it was with his legs or last second shovel passes. He did everything any QB could have done to win that game and I was truly bummed for him since I will always wish him well for the rest of his career. And his pass to Bowe was perfect. The DB did a great job of riding him toward the sideline and Bowe acted as if he didn’t even know where he was. Pathetic on Bowe’s part…..

In Philly it all came down to a kicker who wasn’t even on the team a few weeks ago. I was trying to imagine what he was feeling in the moments before he hit that kick and I’m sure I had no idea what he was feeling.

Today we have the “fluffer game” with the Chargers taking on the Bengals. It’s all fluffer for me, I don’t care who wins that game although I really like Keenan Allen and seem to remember Snarkk imploring the Niners to draft him when I barely even knew his name. Wish they’d listened to him.

ESPN is still talking about how cold it’s going to be today in Green Bay. All the talking heads are tripping over themselves to talk about themselves. And none of them said a single interesting or unique thing. Maybe Stix should score an honorary sideline job for the game. I can only imagine how epic his “pussy all over the field” commentary would be!

According to Stubhub, there’s still a little over 2,200 tickets left for the NFC Wild Card game in Green Bay this Sunday. Packer fans are catching a lot of sh!t on the internet about the possibly embarrassing development of having this game blacked out locally. To which I say: Fuck that. The HIGH is going to be -1. Look, I’m from California. I get irked if I leave the house in the morning and I can see my breath. I don’t own an ice scrapper—if it’s cold enough to ice up my car wind shield in the morning I just sit in the driveway with the defrost on blasting it with my wiper fluid until I can see out of a little hole and then I know I’m good to go–it usually clears up about half way down the hill. I have to deal with this inconvenience about 5 mornings a year.

I own an umbrella but I don’t know where it is……

The point is that when I see that the HIGH is going to be in the *minus* I have great sympathy for the fans of that area who don’t want to throw down a couple hundred bones to go sit in absurd weather to watch a football game. At least the players get to come off the field and sit in front of a heater now and again. The players get to work up a little sweat on the field to keep their body temps up. The fans get none of that.

No, the correct play (if I were a Packer fan) would be to stay at home, eat my giant block of cheese washed down with lots of Budweiser and hope I can secure the game at http://www.vipboxus.co. Black out shmack out. I wouldn’t go to that game with a free ticket…..

It’s anyone’s guess as to what Tanaka will get but it’s almost certainly going to be north of 100 million dollars. It’s been interesting to watch the dichotomy between GM’s wanting to sign him to a big deal and the same GM’s not wanting to sign him to a big deal due to concerns about the volume of pitches he’s thrown over his career. I wouldn’t worry about his arm. He’s been training that arm his entire life. That’s the problem with pitchers today. They can’t throw deep into a game because they don’t have the arm strength to do it.

While I was in Oregon visiting friends this Summer I watched a Little League game that my friend’s son was playing in. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The game was totally dominated by the pitch count. The game was basically just a merry go round of pitchers coming and going. One kid was lights out but was gone after 5 hitters. My buddy’s team lost because he miscalculated the number of pitchers he was using and had to use like the 9th best pitcher on the team in the final inning and the kid walked a couple of hitters and then gave up the game winning hit, a crushed ball that hit the wall out in center field. And this was a regional championship game…..

If this is how pitcher’s arms are now conditioned in the United States then it’s no wonder they can barely throw 100 pitches in a game even if they’re pitching well.

Back in the late 70’s I was one of 2 starting pitchers we had on our team that won the city championship. Either I pitched a complete game or Steve pitched a complete game. I have a hazy memory of getting relieved once in a game we were dominating. We lost one game that year–Steve was sick so Kendall had to pitch and he got lit up. He got relieved by our first baseman, I think.

The point is that we have pitchers on strict pitch counts now because we’ve trained arms down to the need for pitch counts. And that’s just dumb.

Tanaka’s arm will be fine.

Our preferred Rose Bowl meal— Flavor’s Meatball Bonanza:

I heard on the radio that Buster Olney has ranked his top 10 starting staffs and that the Giants didn’t make the top 10. He also gave honorable mention to a couple of teams that weren’t the Giants. Not knowing where Olney would finally rank SF, we know it’s not in the top 12. He had Detroit 1st and the Dodgers 2nd. St Louis might have been 3rd but I didn’t write the top 10 down and that’s all I really remember. I was too stunned to remember much of what I was hearing. I think the Giants have a top 10 rotation in mlb. Maybe top 5. But Onley is very highly regarded so maybe he’s right. We’ll see.

I shudder to think where Olney would rank our offense…..

Anyway, happy new year to all of you guys and enjoy watching the Cardinal win another Rose Bowl tomorrow. I know I will. 🙂

My esteemed colleagues at The Baseball Bloggers Alliance have elected the following players to the Hall of Fame:

Greg Maddux: 94.51%

Frank Thomas: 80.22%

Tom Glavine: 75.82%

Notable misses were Piazza (72%), Barry and Clemens (60%)/59%), Curt Shithead (39%), Morris (25%), McGwire (21%), Walker (17%). The following players got no votes: Benitez, Durham, both the Jones’, LoDuca, Timlin, Nomo and me.

The BBA seems to fall close to the actual HOF voting each year. In 2010 the BBA didn’t vote anyone in and the “so called writers” voted in Andre Dawson. In 2011, the BBA selected Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven and both were inducted into Cooperstown later that Summer. In 2012 the BBA selected Larkin and Bagwell but the “so called writers” only took Larkin. Last year the Bloggers again took Bagwell but no one actually got in. Bagwell lost support in this year’s voting garnering only 65%.

I’ve never been to the Hall of Fame and probably will never go due to its location. I’d go if I was there. But it’s never been on my bucket list. I’m like most of you, I don’t think enough players get in. As a man who walks the earth with the rest of the people, I’m probably not an ideal voter. 🙂

I’m out of town for a few days but saw the Puig-going-110 story and wondered how this might impact Puig and/or his team. I’m inclined to believe this is a sign of a larger problem of Puig being a guy who’s out of control and just basically doing whatever he wants to do–not a unique quality in young athletes, especially for athletes who grew up in poor foreign countries who suddenly find themselves multi-millionaires.

I don’t think Puig has a drug problem (unless you’re talking PED’s which is possible) but if continues to live “life in the fast lane” and not be responsive to people trying to guide him towards more skillful choices in life then there could be a major trouble brewing for him and the team in the very near future.

Thoughts?

It’s that time of year again. Hall of Fame voter time. As an esteemed member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, I have the great honor of being able to cast a vote–well, a more accurate description is that they say if you don’t vote they kick you out of the Alliance. So, without further ado, here are this year’s hopefuls with my vote next to each name.

Moises Alou– negative

Jeff Bagwell– negative

Armando Benitez– laughing to hard to type “negative”

Craig Biggio– negative

Barry Bonds– YES

Sean Casey– negative

Roger Clemens– YES

Ray Durham— negative for *Ray from across the Bay*

Eric Gagne– negative

Tom Glavine– YES

Luis Gonzalez–negative

Jaque Jones–negative

Todd Jones–negative

Jeff Kent– YES

Paul LoDuca–negative (though I greatly enjoy him @ TVG

Greg Maddux— YES

Edgar Martinez-negative

Don Mattingly– Negative

Fred McGriff–negative

Mark McGwire— negative

Jack Morris– YES

Mike MUssina–negative

Hideo Nomo– negative

Rafael Palmiero–negative

Mike Piazza– negative

Tim Raines–YES

Kenny Rogers–negative

Curt Shilling– negative

Big Sexy Sexton–negative

Lee Smith–YES

JT Snow– negative (maybe BAHOF)

Sammy Sosa– negative

Frank Thomas-YES

Mike Timlin–negative

Allan Trammell– negative

Larry Walker– YES

There it is. Nothing to controversial (except maybe Walker). They say you can’t vote for more than 10 and I hit 10 on the nose. Thoughts?

This is the thread I wrote last year. What a difference a year makes. Don’t forget to appreciate the love in your life. If you can, love a little harder today. It’s easy if you try.

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/12/24/have-a-merry-giants-christmas/

Last year on Christmas I read World Serious. I don’t have any new Kokonuts books to read so I’ll either re-read it or maybe watch some basketball. However you choose to spend your day today, enjoy and appreciate someone or something in your life that makes you happy.

I must say, the Dodgers are going about building their bullpen in a unique way. Bee-Wheezy? JP Howell? Chris Perez? Sure, all guys you’d like to have around but they’re all still slated to come in before K-Jan (who is better than all of them, by far, as a closer). But when you don’t have a budget, this is what you do.

Jansen/Wheezy/Perez/Howell destroy the bullpen team of Romo/Casilla/Affeldt/Lopez (come on, it does). It’s a new world, a new Sheriff is in town  (Art Dealers). Sabean wants to “Kapernick” his flailing bicep after all the *heavy lifting* he’s done. But come on, this isn’t 2010/2012. Players are still getting signed, at reasonable costs. Why stop now?

I have been preaching this and no one cares, but we are major danger of losing next year’s division if all we do is sign the bare bones guys. The bullpen is the most important part of the team, we proved that in both our WS wins. How do you guys think our BP currently stacks up against the ‘Dealers? And how does our offense stack up? And our starting pitching? Should I keep going? Is there anything left? Oh, the bench. Um, never mind….

We have the money to compete with them. Sabean chooses to go “stay the course.” This is a stupid, idiotic approach, especially if money is not an issue which it isn’t for the Giants. I’m disgusted with our off season and unless Sabean is banking on the Dodgers team plane going down at some point this season  we are FUCKed. I guess there’s always the wildcard………..

As we conclude our week long good bye to Candlestick, there really isn’t any more to say. Play the game, close the doors. I’m not going to the game. After I found out that there will be a free fan-day before they blow that bitch up I decided that makes more sense for me. I didn’t really care much about going to the Niner game anyway and getting to and leaving the ‘Stick is a major pain.

But here is my Flap Promise to all of you. Should I hit the lotto between now and the day they implode her, I vow to pay whatever the corporate cost is to have a private Flap party right down on the field. It will be a bbq and it will be an evening event. Attire is semi-formal. All Flappers will be invited and if you live out of the area I’ll fly you in on my new, lotto-infused dime.

But just to keep it old school, your ticket into the party is contingent on you BYOB

Mid Field, in all it’s glory:

My buddy is at the game and he just facebooked this photo from his seats:

I’ve been watching all the Niner-Love this week, it’s dominating the good bye to Candlestick week. And maybe it’s because the Niners are still playing there and there’s been *The Catch* and *The Catch 2* and *3* and whatever. There’s no question the ‘Stick has hosted some fantastic football moments.

But come on, if you are talking *moments* at Candlestick you have to admit that the lion’s share of the memories go to baseball. The Giants can’t match the Niners in terms of EPIC moments at the ‘Stick but they played 10 times more games there than the Niners did each year. And they got there first so they had all those games in the bank before the Niners took their first snap. Moments.

If you’re talking about moments that shot fans out of their seats it’s a no-brainer– Candlestick shot more Giants fans out of their seats than Niners fans over the years. And yes, I can do math, I understand the difference between a packed stadium for a Niner game and 8000 Giants fans wandering drunk, aimlessly around the stadium. But ten times the games each year is non-negotiable, the Stick gave Giants fans more *moments*.

And then there’s this: I’m not old enough to remember much before Steve DeBerg, in fact he’s the first Niner QB I can recall watching. But in all this nostalgia bullshit going on this week, it’s like not a single thing ever happened inside of Candlestick until the moment The Catch happened. Now, we all know that isn’t true. But if the entire focus of the *Candlestick goodbye* this week is pinned to the genesis of *The Catch* then it’s pretty obvious how many *moments* are getting missed this week….

I could watch this video till infinity finally just runs out of steam and gives up.

The thing that now blows me away more and more each day are the position players who won us that World Series. Think about it, after 2010 they were mostly all freaking done: Huff, Glass Sanchez, Renteria, Rowand, Torres, Burrell, Ross, Sandoval (who was done THAT YEAR and re-invented himself the next year), Uribe. Well, Uribe cobbled together a nice season in 2013.

But think about that. Our position players were almost all a bunch of ragged guys on their last legs. Their last breaths. It makes that magical season that much more unreal. Did 2010 really happen?

I just watched this ktvu thing about saying goodbye to Candlestick. Everyone wants to get in on a good bye. This is it:

http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/touring-candlestick-park-at-the-end-of-its-life/vCLZ5x/

While I was watching it I got emotional. I’m going to do that a lot in the coming days. Keith Olberman can take his witty quips and go fuck himself. The times I spent at Candlestick were some of the best memories of my childhood.

And while we didn’t always win it *all*, in fact we never did in our actual park, going to games at the ‘Stick will always be part of who i am, who I always will be. Till I die.

I’m sitting here typing this blog thread out and all I can think about are the players. That’s unusual for me, I’m usually about *the moments*. But god dammit did these guys give us some moments or what?

My list in THIS moment: (And hang on, it’s gonna be a wild ride. Stream of consciousness. Freestyle. I will miss so many of the best. No order except maybe the first one.)

Here goes.

Joe Montana

Dwight Clark

Joel Youngblood

Michael Carter

Will Clark

One Flap Down

Renaldo Nehemiah

Jim Barr

Brett Butler

Willie Mac

Mike Ivie

Wendell Tyler

Barry Bonds

Steve Young

John Taylor

Ronnie Lott

Chris Brown

Candy Maldonado

Bill Ring

T.O.

Jerry Rice

Mike Sadek

Dave Fucking Radar!

Rickey Watters

Jack Clark

Ed Halicki

Bobby Murcer

Frank Gore

Johnnie LeMaster

Von Joshua

Larry Herndon

Eric Wright

Ray Wersching

Paul Hofer

Mike Krukow

The Count

Gary Thomasson

Russ Francis

Earl Cooper

Steve DeBerg

Darrell Evans

Atlee Hammaker

The MoonMan

Gary Lavelle

Jeff Fuller

Rod Beck

Mike Cofer

Robby Thompson

William VanLaunchingpad

Matt Williams

Alex Smith

Ozzie Fernandez

Garrison Hearst

Solomon Torres

Vida Blue

Rennie Stennett

Vernon Davis

Bob Knepper

Patrick Willis

That Great Big Ass Escalator

Phil Nastu……. 🙂 …..just to keep it real.

That took me less than 5 minutes to type. And this list could go on forever. Literally. And it will play on inside all of us long after we are gone……

The Yankees got hit with a 28 million dollar luxury tax for 2013 which shouldn’t bother ownership….as long as they win. But they haven’t won in a long time and Hal’s been on a mission to get under the tax ceiling of 178 million for a couple of years now. If they can get under it just once it will reset their tax to 12.5% going forward rather than the whopping 50% they pay now for going over the threshold for so many consecutive years. This brings A-Fraud’s case back into the news. The only way the Yankees get under that cap in 2014 is if a judge upholds his suspension and they don’t have to pay him the 26 million he is owed.

I am praying that Lame-Roid gets all his money. As much as I dislike him and I would experience a smidge of joy knowing he’s got to try to feed his family on the paltry 353 million he’s made in his career so far, it would suck to see Selig and his New York cronies pull this scheme off. This absurd 211 game suspension was never about anything more than the Yankees looking for a get-out-of-jail free card.

The Giants final 2013 payroll checked in at 141.3 million (7th highest in baseball). The way the SF ownership operates there is no way in hell they will ever pay a cent in luxury tax. And far be it from me to criticize how others spend their money but it’s important to note that Giant ownership would check in much higher than 7th if you were ranking wealthiest ownership groups in mlb. Just sayin’.

“If you hit one, you hit one, it doesn’t matter what park you’re at.” — Mike Morse.

That is a quote from a big man who hits monster bombs. That’s Dave Kingman shit. And I think he’s right. For starters, it’s great to hear someone confidently talking about their power abilities. We haven’t had that since Barry who last played six years ago. That’s a long time to go without having a power hitter. And that’s what Morse is. He’s manly muscle. He’s hugely huge– he’s the dude you want behind you when *it’s on*. Come to think of it, he’s the dude you want IN FRONT of you when *it’s on*. 🙂 🙂 🙂

And he’s a right handed hitter so he really doesn’t have to deal with Triples Alley which he’ll appreciate after playing at AT&T for a couple of months.

I watched his interview at Comcast a couple of times. Like him. He’s pretty straight forward. He’s got a little *Voggy* in him when it comes to interviews. And Voggy is without question the best interview on the team—tells it like it is. He doesn’t worry about slipping up on a word or an unpopular opinion.

Anyway, I’m down with Morse. I’m not going to call this a great signing the way I called the “Pagan for Torres” trade. Morse and his brittleness make him too much of a risk for that. But Sabean did a great job scoring this dude…….

_______________________

Quickie on Mark Mulder: I read Sabean’s comments on him earlier today and I was surprised because he made it sound like Mulder was after the $$$$. I thought, “that’s a joke, Mulder just fiddled around with his windup and is giving the big leagues one last shot. Plus, he’s already under contract for 2 more years with ESPN, he’s got a nice paying gig already.”

I guess Mulder caught wind of Sabean’s nonsense because he tweeted this out:

Now, the reason I uploaded this tweet re-tweet is because Sabean feeds the local scribes bullshit on a regular basis. It’s nice to see Mulder call him on it. Someone needed to…….

The advanced metrics continue to score pitchers nice deals. Edinson Volquez signed a 1 year deal with the Pirates for 5 million. His 5.71 ERA wasn’t what the Pirates liked. They were enamored with his 4.07 xFIP (which someone should tell them still isn’t very good). But the Pirates love the xFIP metric, they scored big when buying low on Burnett and Liriano using the same approach. And I’m not against xFIP at all. I do wonder if Sabean even knows what it is. I think he does. Hopefully  someone on his staff is advising him. I didn’t look it up prior to this thread going to print, but I seem to remember Timmy having a nice xFIP last year and the year before that.

The Rockies just handed Boone Logan a boatload of money. He’s another guy with a fabulous xFIP/ERA discrepancy and his was actually pretty good last year— 2.71. We’ll see how that works out. I can tell you I’ve seen a lot of Boone Logan on the YES network over the last couple of years and very little of it is good. Dude has a penchant for imploding at the wrong time. But hey, he got 16.5 mil from the Rockies. I like this deal because it means we get to tee off on Boone Logan in the late innings.

The Rockies also signed Morneau a few days ago. Can’t imagine too many Pirate fans were bummed to see him go. Twenty five games, 92 plate appearances, zero home runs, 3 rbi’s (regular season).

I saw Heyman tweet out that he considers Posey the 3rd best offensive player in all of baseball after Trout and Miggy. I guess he didn’t watch Posey play last year……

I’m still trying to keep it real with relevant breaking news. Uribe has re-signed with the Art Dealers. At the time we sent this blog post to print, terms of the deal have not been disclosed. To me, at least. Maybe to Heyman, that fuck. He routinely scoops me…..

Uribe was probably never on the table for Sabes. For starters, Sabean has quit looking to improve the team. For most GM’s their work is never really done, they’re always trying to tweak and twist their roster into something better. Not for Sabes. He has his agenda, he signs his guys, fills out a roster and then he’s done with his “heavy lifting” as he likes to call it.

Uribe is probably still pissed at the Giants for leaking the lawsuit story filed against him by his former landlord. Remember that? He burned up his kitchen with a grease fire and then flew the coop. I think he settled out of court a year later. The Giants didn’t bother leaking that part of the story, did they?

In an earlier poll, 75.61% of you said that Sabean would nOt trade for a new left fielder. I should have added the choice of signing one as a free agent. I’m pleased with the Michael Morse signing. He’s cheap. Big. Powerful. Brittle. He will be the everyday starting left fielder as long as he’s healthy. Blanco will get a start here and there but the time you’ll see Blanco (or Perez) most often is 8th inning onward when he comes in to take over for Morse and his putrid defense.

Besides defense, his health is the obvious concern. In a perfect world I’d like to see Morse play first base with Belt in left field. Morse is probably less worse at first and Belt would be an obvious upgrade to him in left field. The other main reason I’d put Morse at 1st: less likely of getting injured. It’s almost going to be a given that this dude pulls a hammy or jams a knee on an earthquake-causing dive. Less chance of him hurting himself over at the 1-bag.

And if you’re still not on board with the Morse signing ask yourself this: would you rather have Morse for a year at 5 mil or Rajai Davis for 2 years at 10? Sabean did a good job on this but with the (L)astros being the competition for his services you have to wonder at least a little if we’ve found fools gold.

We’ll see.

A few days ago, our great friend Pawlie Kokonuts excitedly sent me an email of a poem called *No October* written by a Giants fan that he had somehow come to know. I love Pawlie but he’s a level or 6 above me when it comes to meeting up with Giants fans who are strangers. I was busy, scanned part of it quickly, figured I’d get to it when I had more time. You’re not supposed to rush through a poem, right? Anyway, I lost the email somehow, probably deleted it, but either way it wasn’t anywhere to be found in my trash or my inbox. A day later I sheepishly asked him to send it again. He forwarded me a link at Amazon and being the supporter of great writing that I am, I clicked the link and bought the poem for .99 cents.

It’s really more of a short story. The poem is beautiful, but at the end of it the author, Celeste Johnston, details her life as a Giants fan—mostly how she became a Giants fan. I was captured by her words. Not just because I could relate to how this team imprinted itself on to her soul in the 70’s at the same time it did to me. I was hooked by the beginning as I read about a girl who grew up in a baseball family that lived and breathed baseball. But remember, in the 70’s we were still a long way away from any meaningful benefits that Title IX would bring to women’s sports. It was hardly a given that a young girl in the 70’s would automatically become a fan of baseball or any sport. As many of you know, I am a big supporter of women’s sports—I go to more Stanford women’s soccer and basketball games than I do the men’s. And I happen to be raising quite the female athlete if I do say so myself.

As a boy, I fell backwards and quite easily into being a Giants fan. It was more of a meandering path for Celeste. For instance, here is an excerpt that shows her inclination towards the underdog:

“I remember one time in my first grade class, crying for George McGovern because he had only received one vote (mine) in a classroom poll of who the children’s parents were voting for. I remember looking at the lone little chalk mark on the black board that represented my vote compared to the scores of votes on the other side of the board for Nixon. I felt so bad for McGovern and a little for myself because I was clearly apart from the rest of the class and even after the teacher, seeing that I was upset, asked if I wanted to change my vote to join the rest of the class, I stubbornly refused because I would not abandon Mr McGovern and leave him to his unpopular fate….”

As a girl, growing up in a family of Dodger fans, you can see how the seeds of her Giant fandom were sprinkled……

There are so many parts of this *short story* that I enjoyed. She talks about her love of Candlestick and how her child-eyes saw the ballpark. For instance:

“I was in love; just happy to be at the ballpark. I used to dream of what it would be like to be trapped in the ballpark alone at night. Innocently I thought it would be wonderful, safely sequestered within the stadium walls where I could run around the outfield and sleep on the grass with only the stars as my canopy above. It was a dream I had after every game, to hide away after everyone left and the stadium my own to play in….”

She talks about the struggles her family had to make ends meet and how that impacted the 3 Giants games or so that her dad would take her too each year.

I’m going to stop uploading excerpts now. I’ve intentionally not posted any part of her poem because it would ruin the read to only show snippets. I’m hoping that my endorsement as well as the two excerpts above from her *epilogue* will be enough to encourage you to buy it. It’s .99 cents and while I don’t know what Celeste does for a living I’m pretty sure sure isn’t a professional writer. No October came from her heart and she puts words together like I wish I could. It was an honor to read her writing. Here’s the link:

http://tinyurl.com/lemxftf

By the way, if you are like me and didn’t understand the *kindle* part of the link, don’t worry you don’t have to have a kindle. That’s just Amazon’s way of hooking you up with their cloud or where ever it is that this poem is stored. No matter, after you buy it, it’s easily accessible from the link. Enjoy.

Brian Sabean took time out from his field trips to Tampa Bay to tell Andrew Baggarly that negotiating an extension for Sandoval this Spring would be “conventional wisdom.” Excuse me?

Is Sabean just dumb? It’s a serious question. He gives Sandoval nearly 18 million dollars after he loses the weight prior to the 2011 season only to watch him balloon back up to a blimp shortly there-after. Pablo: 1 Sabean: 0. Now The Panda is busy cutting himself in half because, you know, he needs to gear up for his contract year. And instead of calling bullshit on this pathetic approach to preparing himself as a major league player year to year, instead of adhering to the “fool me once/twice” adage, he’s telling Baggarly that *conventional wisdom* says to sign him to a mega deal? So what happens when you give him 75 million and he starts powering down the giant sundae’s again? Wait him out till the end of the new deal, watch him get in shape again and then give him another 100 million? This is just beyond idiotic.

I don’t doubt for a second that Pablo will come to camp in shape and have a good year. And I doubt for even less than a second that there will be dumb ass GM’s lining up to offer him a boatload of cash. The world wouldn’t make sense without dumb ass GM’s out there making it rain on all of these players.

Sabean can make it rain all week on the Tampa hoes. But I don’t want him to make it rain on the Panda in Spring Training. Working out for a couple of months shouldn’t get you a 75-100 million dollar contract. It just shouldn’t and Sabean should know better.

Look, we don’t have to be held hostage by Panda’s wild cravings anymore. His value is overrated anyway. Go look at his stats and tell me otherwise. If he wants to bolt after 2014, let him. Move Posey over to 3rd and promote Susac. Or sign a FA 3rd baseman or move Posey to 3rd and sign a FA catcher. Just because the Giants failed to develop a 3rd baseman in the minor leagues shouldn’t mean that Sabean is always going to be responsible for trying to satiate the insatiable Panda. I’m beyond tired of this being an issue year in and year out. Look, his metabolism is only going to slow down as he gets older, this *problem* will only get worse as he ages. Take the best of what he has to offer next year and move freaking on already…..

The Giants were *rumored* to have interest in Brett Gardner. It was irritating to listen to the KNBR morning show with the host (Murph) not even knowing who he was. How can you be the host of a major morning sports broadcast show and not know who all the players are?  And we aren’t talking about some random journeyman or a brand new rookie. Gardner isn’t an all star but he’s 30 and entering his 7th major league season with the Yankees. Anyway, that was astounding.

I don’t expect the Giants to trade for Gardner or anyone with the Yankees because they don’t have what New York wants: major league ready talent. We have barely enough of that to fill out 8 spots in the line up and Sabean isn’t trading away any starting pitching. Romo? I guess, but that just creates another hole and Sabean doesn’t like to create holes in his major league roster.

Plus, I don’t think Gardner is worth Romo. Gardner would probably hit ok at ATT Park but I’ve always felt he’s a little overrated. He’s fast, sure. And that’s it. And as he eases into his 30’s you don’t get faster you get slower……

I’ve been an *Ichiro* guy for a while now. And he could be had for much less than Romo. But the Giants don’t like him because he’s 40. That is ridiculous. Ichiro will be able to hit until he’s 50. Especially at AT&T Park where he would bang doubles and triples one handed while eating a Sheboygan with the free hand. And I would posit that a 40 year old Ichiro would dwarf what a 30 year old White Shark would do every game of the week and twice on off days. Plus, it would send Blanco to his rightful spot on the bench.

Either way, neither guy will get acquired. I’m just trying to do my diligence and keep up with my *esteemed colleagues* at mlbtraderumors.com 🙂

What the hell, I’m in the mood for a poll:

I’m not gonna lie, during the first series when Seattle had the ball, and the crowd was chanting “De-fense” over and over, I got a little choked up. I didn’t just hear hear the pride of Niner fans, I felt it in my soul.  So much great history, resonating, reverberating, shaking…..

As Giants fans, we said goodbye to Candlestick Park 14 years ago. I’ll never forget my first game at AT&T, coming up the stairwell seeing that brand new beautiful park—it took my breath away, literally. But I will never stop missing games at the ‘Stick and all of the amazing moments I was a part of, as a fan, in that place.

My dad had season tickets to Niner games in ’79 and ’80. He gave them up the year before they won the Super Bowl. My parents got divorced in ’78, I think it was his way of apologizing to me or something. While I’ve been to a few Niner games since then, I went to a bunch with him over that 2 season period. I was too young to really remember them much. At least, not like I remember going to Giants games. I think that’s where the “knowing dude head nod” was born.  Although now I think those weren’t really “knowing dude head nods” that I shared with my Giant’s brethren—our heads were just shaking involuntarily from the freezing temperatures, lol.

Still, yesterday, I felt the Niner pride all the way from Candlestick, through my tv and into my living room. So many great memories from that shit hole. Giants games, Niner games, even a Monsters of Rock event that I remember a little of.

I think I’ll remember that Frank Gore run that set up the game winning field goal for the rest of my life. I am so jealous of the fans that got to watch it live, erupting in unison. One of the great Candlestick moments. There have been so many.

I had a half-hearted plan to hit a final Niner game this year but didn’t get off my ass to make it happen. I can’t actually remember the last Giants game I went to at Candlestick. I think I’ve been to a Niner game or 2 over the last 14 years. Still, it would have been great to go to one final game. I doubt I’ll go to the final regular season game and we likely won’t have any playoff games at home this year. I regret not going to a final game at the ‘Stick this year. One final game.

I’m not going to watch them blow her up. My heart couldn’t take it. It would be like blowing up part of my soul….

I’m writing this thread with the tv on in the background. It’s playing an infomercial about something called “Meaningful Beauty”. It’s endorsed by Cindy Crawford and it’s about some *doctor* in France who has found a super anti-oxident in a *rare melon* that promised to keep your skin looking young forever. I will say this: If you want to laugh out loud at 5am one of these mornings, you should try to catch this infomercial. I won’t go into the details of it here but it is hilarious, in an unintended way, from start to finish. You can probably find it on youtube.com

Regarding the Winter Meetings: I predict that the Meaningful Beauty infomercial will end up being more engaging than what will be happening at the Winter Meetings. At least for the Giants. I’m obviously going to follow the Meetings on twitter though what I’d really like to do is follow Sabean’s caravan to the Tampa strip clubs—something that also promises to be more interesting than the Winter Meetings.

I’m not spending the time on guessing who Sabean trades for IF he was going to pull off a deal for a left fielder next week. But I’ll throw up a poll about it.

Weird return to Los Dealers for Bee-Dipshit. Were there just no other offers to close on the table? LA is a crack up. They give Brandon League 22.5 million last year to close. That doesn’t work out so he goes to set up role and then Jansen takes over as closer (he should have always been the closer). Now they’re paying Wheezy what will essentially work out to be 18.5 million (he’s got a player option in the second year of the deal) to be the set up guy. Think about that for a second. Is there any better example of random, haphazard dispersement of payroll than having a little over 40 million dollars tied up into two guys who will set up for a pitcher making less than a million dollars to pitch as their closer in 2014?

Well, Wheezy does live in LA and maybe he’s banking on Jansen imploding or something. I can’t imagine he doesn’t want to close, his “look at me” attitude is too overwhelming for him to want to do anything else. They don’t play music for the set up guy. And that beard ain’t doing anything other than growin’ in the 8th inning. The beard has always grown on ego and the adulation of an adoring public. This scene from Seinfeld is what the beard is all about:

The Winter Meetings are going down next week and Sabean is reporting that he’ll be powering down a fried steak and the big beers at the best strip club in Orlando (although some light googling showed that he’s going to need to make the drive to Tampa for the best strip clubs in Florida). He’s also going to have to find time to work on his tan and if he’s gotta drive to Tampa I’m not sure when he’ll fit that all that in. Conundrum. Oh well, I’m sure he’ll work it out. One recommendation for Sabes: When it’s time to “make it rain” on the hoes I hope he has the decency to toss the dollar bills. He can’t throw coins at them. Do not make it hail on the hoes. Make it rain….

One thing we know he won’t be doing is making any moves to improve his team. Nothing “earth shattering” or anything and those are his words, not mine. The Winter Meetings are lame now anyway, in case anyone missed it, the *Winter Meetings* have been going down over the last week and a half. I predict multiple GM caravan’s headed from Orlando to Tampa next week…….

I’ll put this out to Flavor Nation: Do you believe it’s likely we suffer a major injury to a starting position player next year? It’s likely, right? Who will be filling in for that guy? And I don’t want to hear about Arias or Abreu or any of that nonsense. We have the lightest, barest, weakest group of 8 position players of all but a handful of the worst teams in all of baseball. We are screwed if we go into the season with the 8 position players currently slated to start for us.

I’ll be referring back to all of these threads when Sabean starts trotting out his “bad penny” white flag official statement after Gregor Freaking Blanco goes down with a knee injury in late June of next year……..

I think I’ve been too hard on Sabean lately. So I’ll say this: I couldn’t be happier that he’s staying out of the 100-200+ million dollar nonsense that some of these other teams can’t stop themselves from engaging in. Jacoby Ellsbury ain’t worth no 153 million. He just isn’t. If I’m giving that much scratch to a guy he needs to be a franchise player which J-Ell is not.

He needs to be rock solid healthy with no injury history. Um, can’t check that box off either. And I’m not just talking about the games he’s missed up to this point in his career. He sat out almost all of 2010 and more than half the games in 2012. He’s 30, take the number of games he’s missed pre-30 and double or triple that number to guess the number he’ll miss now that he’s aging into his 30’s– remember, players only played consistently deep well into their 30’s during the steroid era. Outside of of David Ortiz (who is likely on them) you just don’t see players *getting better* into their mid/late 30’s.

He would need to be a clubhouse leader. J-Ells is known for keeping to himself and having next to no relationship with his teammates. No thanks, not if it’s my 153 million.

If he’s an outfielder, his game can’t be based almost solely on speed. And outside of his 1-off home run heavy year in 2011, Ellsbury has been all about 2 things: stolen bases and defense. Sorry, I’m not spending 153 million on that. Remember, you get slower as you get older, not faster. I’m surprised Brian Cashman doesn’t know this.

Jacoby Ellsbury is like a poor man’s Carl Crawford who now makes more money than Crawford. It was a hilarious panic move by the Yankees and I can’t wait to watch it blow up in their face.

Two pretty crazy trades went down yesterday as well as a free agent pitcher signing while Sabean passively offered arbitration to his uninspiring arb eligible players…..

The Tigers and the Orioles made 2 head scratcher deals with Detroit sending Fister to the Nationals for next2nothing and Baltimore giving the A’s Jim Johnson who has 101 saves over the last 2 seasons. On paper, it seems like both the Tigers and the Orioles got taken for a ride. The A’s finished the day off with a 2 year/22 million dollar deal for Scott Kazmir—

The Fister deal is particularly galling since it seems that one of the better starting pitchers in the AL could be had for peanuts. It would have been nice to have Doug Fister on our team instead of Ryan Vogelsong. Did Sabean even know he was available?

I’m hoping that Sabean scrambles around to find Dan Duquette’s cell phone number. I never saw the Romo-to-Orioles proposed deal as a possibility– it didn’t make any sense to send Romo to a team with a closer who has 101 saves under his belt across the last 2 seasons. But now it makes perfect sense, provided that the Orioles can’t possibly be considering giving the job to K-Rod. He should change his nickname to Walk-Rod.

The deals that went down in baseball yesterday are EXACTLY the type of deals that Sabean should be working on. Forget all this nonsense about re-signing all the guys who barely kept us out of last place in 2013. You have to keep working to improve your team whenever there is an opportunity to improve it. You can’t just barely fill out your starting staff and then have the barest minimalist approach to cobbling together your position players. The Dodgers can buy whoever they want to put together a championship team. We have to do it with slick, aggressive moves. There should be no vacation for Brian Sabean. Ever. Work until your eyeballs fall out of your head. Other GM’s are doing it, why shouldn’t Sabean?

Since I can’t stand to hear him give up in July like he did last year I’ll say it for him now in December: 2014 is shaping up to be a bad penny year……..

It sure is nice to see so many Flappers have unquestioned faith in Brian Sabean. And far be it from me to do anything but honor the two world championships that his teams brought to us. But here’s the deal: 2010 and 2012 are over with. And in case some of you didn’t see it, there’s a new sheriff in town and his name is The Art Dealer. He doesn’t care what things cost. He spends wildly on his art hoping that one or two of them will turn out to be priceless works of art. And though it didn’t work out for him in 2013, this is the model he will adhere to until he wins. And if he keeps spending, he will win.

A decent argument against this model is, “Well, the Yankees spend money every year and they’ve only won a single world series in the 13 years that have passed since their dynasty.” So clearly, spending money doesn’t equal a guarantee of anything.

But what the Art Dealers are doing make the Yankees look like the a typical Houston Astro re-build year. Their payroll will be in the 230+ million in 2014 and they will likely go tens of millions above that in the coming seasons. They wipe their ass with the luxury tax receipt that they’ll be paying year in and year out while they reel off 2 or 3 world series championships in a row. The Yankees had a built in fatal flaw that the overrated Cashman didn’t have an answer for: they got too old. And at the same time they started freaking out about the luxury tax and have been trying to get under that while the rest of their team ages out of the league. This will never happen to the ‘Dealers. If some of their old guys get too old they’ll just release them or bench them and go trade for another 2 or 3 guys who are still productive but who are too expensive for their current team to hold on to. Everyone’s looking for salary relief. Except for the Art Dealers. From that stand point they’re really more like Drug Dealers. But I can only keep track of one nickname at a time so…..

What does that mean for the Giants? Of course I’m not suggesting that they can keep up with them from a payroll standpoint. But the model can’t be “The pitching is set and let’s just see what happens.” We are too thin across the board with our position players. Don’t believe me? What happens if Pagan goes down again next year? Hmmmm, I guess Sabes could slide good ‘ol Blanco over to CF and see what Torres is doing–maybe he’d come back and play left field for us. We have one of the worst outfield’s in baseball and if one of our “big 3” go down who’s our back up plan? Gary Freaking Brown? Francisco Peguero? Oops, never mind. The Giants can’t continue to ignore their hitting by putting together the barest minimum line of of position players. If we do that we are guaranteed another “bad penny year” as Sabes likes to say when he gives up in early July…..

My point is that 2010 and 2012 are not anything to fall back on as *evidence* that our model will work in the new NL West. The Art Dealer’s have raised the bar. We have to raise ours……..

We traded Monell for cash. I’ll guess $25,000. I’m sure that haul will hit the team bank account hard. By the way, beers at AT&T are going up a buck next season……

Now we explore the exciting possibilities of what The Great Peguero might bring us. $50,000? I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to sleep tonight. When I do finally drift off I know what my first dream will be:  If we some day ever trade Erik Cordier or Jose de Paula could we possibly net 75K for the both of them? I’ll sleep on the old linens tonight just in case that dream gets out of hand……..

Brian Sabean is now doddering around like an old man muttering to himself at the race track, every now and then picking up losing tickets off the floor and hoping to find a winner. Pathetic……

Does that do anything fer ya? I don’t think bringing back Vogelsong was Bruce Jenkin’s idea of nailing down that final fifth starter. It’s nice that the Giants got him for about half what they would have had to pay him if they had picked up his option. Decent business move, I guess.

If Sabean were playing Colleti in chess, this move would equal moving your pawn a couple of spots forward with no real plan for what to do next. This is not a move that allows us to be *at least as good* as the Dodger pitching staff.

Voggy’s biggest question is whether he can regain his velocity or not. It’s possible he wasn’t able to find it because of the injury and it’s hard to come back mid season after missing so much time. Or maybe he’s just gotten too old. It happens quickly sometimes. Just ask Ted Lilly.

I’m now watching an off season that is starting to worry me. Sabean has spent most of his time just re-signing all the guys who barely kept them out of last place last season. And Tim Hudson, while a nice addition, isn’t going to be able to make up that many games in the win column. He’s only one man.

Left Field is a massive problem. Our offense sucks. And our pitching, in the best case scenario, still isn’t as good as the Dodgers staff. Things are dark and gloomy. Could be time for some haiku’s to perk me up but I feel like that’s at least a month too early. If we start writing them now what will we do a month from now?

Nolasco signed with The Twins. Terms haven’t been disclosed yet. Man, how much would it suck if your pitching staff was The Twins? Nolasco instantly becomes their ace with Correia and Deduno the #2/#3. I don’t think they’ve sorted out #4/#5 yet. That’s a small problem they might want to address.

Bruce Jenkins was on KNBR today, I caught a bit of it while I was driving around finishing off last second birthday present purchases (my daughter turned 11 today). When asked if the Giants need to make another move he instantly and confidently said *yes* that they have to fill LF hole and find a 5th starter. He emphasized the 5th starter (he said Arroyo) because of something I hadn’t really considered. He said that if the Giants aren’t going to be able to compete with the Dodgers payroll-wise (few could) the Giants need to at least field a starting 5 that is as good as the Dodgers starting 5 and that the only way they could come close to doing that is to go rock solid (if not spectacular) from 1 through 5. He didn’t say this, but the assumption was that there was no way they could field 8 position players that matched the Dodgers 8 starting position players so matching their starting pitchers would be the most realistic goal for Sabean if all he has to do is add one more starting pitcher. And frankly, Jenkins’ point made a ton of sense…..

He was also asked a stupid hypothetical question of would it make sense for the Giants to trade Panda to the A’s for Cespedes (or, would the teams make that deal). He immediately said “of course the Giants would do it but there’s no way the A’s would.” And he’s right. His reasoning didn’t include the most important reason and that’s that the A’s have one of the best 3rd basemen in all of baseball in Josh Donaldson so why would they want to add the Panda? But all of his others reasons were sound, too. The A’s would be fools to gift us Cespedes for Sandoval. Too bad, how exciting would it be if that trade ever actually happened?

This is a fantastic post:

And while Blade didn’t author most of it and I never read the article, it speaks to the backward-ass way that most teams operate…..

A player doesn’t get to free agency until he plays in 6 full seasons at the major league level. Six years is a long time, at any level of any professional sport. Athlete’s bodies break, sometimes quickly but without question they fail over time. Baseball GM’s do a good job of managing these players and getting the most production possible out of them during their indentured time. But they don’t start paying them big bucks until the peak of their career has ended. How stupid is that? The ultimate goal of all professional teams should be to stock pile players that produce more value on the field than what they get paid. If you look at WAR, player value is 5 mil per win. But with free agents it’s 9 million per win. Is there a simpler numerical disparity that highlights the stupidity of signing free agents in baseball?

With the sweet cable deals that are fueling revenue for ALL mlb teams right now it’s difficult to guess where baseball goes with free agency in the future. There is a ton of dough out there and it’s getting spent on players who are on the Coke Bottle slide of their career. No one know what owners are making off each of their players. Wins are one thing, merchandise and TV deals are another. Fans look at a deal and just assess the total dollars paid out and the years of the deal. I think that might be the best example of how clueless we fans are to the financial side of how professional sports are operated………

If I were an owner,  I would operate my team by not giving a single sh!t about the back of a player’s baseball card. Why pay him tens of millions of dollars for what he did for your competitor? Still, the owners all look fat and happy. They probably sit around laughing at us……

Like several other players busted in the Biogenesis bust, Jhonny Peralta got 50 games of unpaid leave, publicly humiliating himself and the fake stats he generated while on the juice as well as leaving his team in the lurch as the playoff stretch run kicked into high gear. In exchange for this consequence, the St Louis Cardinals handed him 52 million dollars–that’s more than 3 times what the Blue Jays gave to Fake Website Guy. And there are a half a dozen teams tripping over themselves to sign Nelson Cruz. He’ll probably get 80 million+.

Clearly, the consequence for failing a drug test isn’t working. 50 games? No problemo. More time to work on my Summer tan. 100? Sure, I’ll bide my time by pumping out extra sets in the gym and banging hot chicks while my team forages on without me.

I find it beyond hypocritical that there are teams and fans around the country who want to asterisk (*) Barry Bonds but those same teams and fans are handing over millions of dollars to known steroid offenders and celebrating their arrival. If Jhonny Peralta were to break Bonds’ single season home run record next year (yes, this example is just for the sake of argument) would the Cardinals organization celebrate it or asterisk (*) it?

I could care less if players take steroids. Hell, they should be required to take them. As a fan, I have the right to expect to see the best athlete that science can produce! Yes, kidding. But really, I don’t care if they take them. Just don’t get caught. And mlb’s drug program is NOT working. The Biogenesis scandal came to light  because a minion in the organization ratted the operation out—it wasn’t like all those guys failed drug tests. Well, besides Braun, and we know what a fiasco that turned into.

I don’t know what the drug policy should be. The tide seems to have turned in terms of player acceptance of cheating, many players came out publicly against the players caught up in the Bio-bust. That wouldn’t have happened 5-10 years ago. But those same players are now watching these guys apologize and come back to 52 million dollar deals waiting for them. How long will the swell of player disapproval last if that keeps happening?

While other teams are busy wheeling and dealing, the Giants quietly announced the signing of Javier Lopez. Excuse me if I don’t celebrate this move. It’s nice. Great to have him back. But I’d like to point out that the only new player added to last year’s near-last place team is Tim Hudson. And I’m happy to have Huddy come aboard. It’s just that, well, this off season is starting to have that *underwhelming* feel to it.

The Cardinals boldly went out and got Peter Bourjos. The Tigers brazenly traded away Prince Fatso. And those were teams that good last year. We were not good last year. We could not hit last year. And excuse me if I don’t trust Sabean to sit on his hands until the 2014 trade deadline before he trades for a competent left fielder. And our bench is a joke.

Big Game today. Go Cardinal.

I didn’t know a lot about Michael Weiner. Donald Fehr turned me off to anyone who led that union. I heard he had inoperable brain cancer a few months ago, didn’t think much of it. But over the last hour I have read several articles about what an amazing person he was. He was 51.

I didn’t think a single thing about baseball immediately after I heard that he had died. I thought about his 3 daughters. I googled around a bit to find out how old they are but didn’t find their ages. I didn’t google too hard, it would have probably just bummed me out. I can’t imagine what it would be like to leave my only daughter behind much less 3 of them.

Lots of players are tweeting about this, their condolences and sadness seems genuine. But if this guy was as awesome as everyone says he was, I just keep wondering what his kids must be feeling tonight. Sounds like they just lost the best dad in the world.

Ken Rosenthal wrote a piece about him today. I guess they were friends or had become friends. He started the article by saying he was introduced to Weiner by player’s agent who said “He is the smartest, fairest, kindest person you will ever meet.” He ended the article with this: “That agent from many years ago had it right. Michael Weiner was the smartest, fairest kindest person I’ve ever met. And there isn’t even a close second.”

When you read something like that you should feel disappointed that you didn’t know this man. At least, I did. And I can’t shake the feeling tonight of how sad his 3 daughters are tonight. I can only imagine how devastated he was to leave his family so early, so unexpectedly. ANd if he’s anything like he sounds like he was, he was most devastated for them….

Still kind of reeling from the Fielder/Kinsler trade. Not sure what Texas is doing but if you don’t care about money I guess it’s a move that could work out in their favor. On the flip side of that bold trade, we had Larry Baer trying to shift fan’s focus away from any off season moves that might acquire a starting left fielder by saying: “In 2010 and 2012 LF was basically a platoon situation too and we went and got help mid season (Burrell, Ross, Pence).” I think that is a dangerous path to travel. The Giants couldn’t be any thinner at pretty much every non-pitching position. One guy goes down, we’re screwed. Heck, we might be screwed if they all manage to stay up.