A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Our loyal Flap friend *AlleyKat* reported on the last thread that Flemming said on KNBR this evening that Wilson isn’t expected to be ready to start the season. That’s an obvious concern. I’ll tell you, this entire Wilson situation has been handled in bizarre fashion. This guy was basically shut down in the middle of August, though he wasn’t ever really *shut down*. They *half way* shut him down, rested him and evolved his plan into the *we’re out of it* approach and THAT turned into the NEW reason of why he wasn’t pitching. Then he randomly pitched twice in September, getting one save. There was also an ominous, unreported (at the time he went) overnight visit to Dr. Andrews. He checked out but that was clearly a red flag (or was it a white flag?). Anyway, he checked out with “Dr. A”(OK) so if he had nothing more than a strain I thought AT THE TIME that  it was a good idea to get the dude back on the horse to get at least some work in before ST ’12. Otherwise, he would have spent the Winter wondering about the *game condition* of his arm. If that’s the situation, I’m glad he threw an inning or two before the end of the 2011 season. But that was under the condition that there was nothing more than a strain going on in his arm. Now I’m not so sure what’s going on…..

The off season started and Wilson followed his *don’t touch a ball till Jan 1* plan. According to Sabean, this was the cautious approach that they decided to take. And, I’m still semi-fine with that, though now a little nervous. But I’m going with what the doctors are recommending….

Now, at least according to Flem on KNBR today, it sounds like Wilson won’t be ready for Opening Day. Again, TOTALLY FINE WITH THIS (nervousness growing)—-as long as it’s just him missing the season by a couple of weeks as it relates to his conservative rehab plan outlined by the team doctors at the end of the season….

But let me say this and I will be crystal fucking clear about it: If Wilson can’t go by late April or if it turns out some *missed injury* is found or if he comes back and his arm snaps clean off the first pitch he throws….I will be infuriated with how the team and their doctors handled this problem. Disgustedly infuriated. *Heads Must Roll Infuriated*. We knew he had a possibly serious arm injury last August—He took a midnight trip across the country to confirm it. He gets news that isn’t *the worst* so they let him pitch twice in September. Huge, MAJOR fuck up if it turns out they were wrong about this being *just a strain*. Ask yourself, how many “just a strains” end up shutting you down for 6 months? Actually, Josh Johnson (Marlins ace)  dealt with a similar *strain*  last year, though I think it was in his shoulder. He was finally shut down too, sans surgery. But I digress. Again, if it was *just a strain* and they went conservative with the rehab, and he comes back this season maybe a couple weeks late, this is no big deal at all…..

But if it’s more than that, and if the rehab could have been handled differently or if they should have done surgery…..I am going to be pissed off to no end at the team (medical and otherwise) with how they handled this……

Now, having ranted about all this, it’s time to focus on the Bee-Weezy alternatives. We actually have 3 viable, short term alternatives.

They are:

1) Sergio Romo: *Wanna-be-Beardo* has entered “Eck like” territory, at least in terms of numbers. He had a 31/1 K/bb ratio over his last 32 innings. That’s sickeningly absurd. He’s throwing his slider 54% of the time now and I say, throw it 84% of the time. Or more. It’s un-hittable. His late season arm problems bear watching as does the fact, according to him, that he doesn’t have the make up to be a closer (stresses out too much, holds on to losses to long, etc). Yes, that’s a big deal. But if those two things are straight he’s ready to save 40+ games TODAY.

2) Affeldt: the best thing you can say about him is that he’s a ground ball pitcher who is tough on lefties. I don’t know if that’s enough to close for us for an extended period of time, but he COULD do it and he might be a perfect *closer match* for…..

……3) Santiago Casillia. He throws hard, he’s a GB pitcher, he’s death to righties (they batted .155 against him last year) and he was a total stud in the 2nd half of 2011. But his control problems are obvious and can crop up at any time. That along makes him sketchy at best to use as a closer and unusable at worst….

Heath Hembree is waiting in the wings but I just can’t see the Giants using him in the early part of 2012. Not with these other 3 options available, at least for the short term…..

Night time Thread? Hey, when I can’t be certain that I can get my usual 6am thread up tomorrow and I have to go *Night time Thread* tonight it must mean I’ve got an extreme amount of sh!t to do tomorrow, right? Hmmmmm. I should still be able to work in some BB of the Day Action…..

Someone mentioned this a while back and I didn’t take notice of it until it actually happened and he wrote a *goodbye post* the other day at the Merc. The reality is, this doesn’t change anything for me except where I click on the internet. Baggs is still going to be churning out his excellent blog, it’s just found in a different spot on my bookmark bar. Here is the tiny url for you to do the same:

http://tinyurl.com/7a3yh4z

I can probably count on one hand the number of San Jose Mercury’s I’ve bought in my lifetime. I was a die hard Chron guy. At least, until they did a hatchet job on Barry–I cancelled my subscription the same day and haven’t bought a single paper since. It wasn’t that hard to do, I read pretty much everything on the internet these days. I didn’t start reading Baggs’ blog until probably 2008. I think I clicked on a link someone posted and I’ve been hooked ever since. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say he’s the hardest working beat writer out there. He often talks about being the last one in the press box after a game and I think it’s obvious that his attention to detail, and the homework he clearly does for an article, shows his commitment to his trade. His first article for Comcast is classic Baggs. I hope he got a big raise to make this career jump, he clearly deserves one….

Outside of reading a Kawakami blog post every now and again, I can’t imagine why I’d ever go back to the Mercury website……

I know this has been discussed but I’ve got nothin’ this morning. Our entire season hinges on the health of Buster Posey’s ankle. It’s just a feeling I have, but I don’t think his ankle is going to be ready to catch regularly at the major league level. And all this *play him at first base v. lefties* is a nice idea but it means Eli or VP Stewart are gonna have to get behind the dish (until I actually see Bochy give Hector a shot I don’t consider him a possibility).

And what if Buster goes “Kendry Morales” on us and it turns out the ankle needs more surgery?

Maybe I’m being paranoid–nightmares of another season of Eli Whiteside will do that. But I jut don’t think this transition back from his horrific ankle injury is going to be as smooth as everyone wants us to believe….

I’m not sure which is my more favorite website: 1) baseball-reference.com or 2) Cotts baseball contract website which was apparently purchased by baseballprospectus.com some time in the last year. Good for the dude who started that site.

Anyway, you get a lot of info at both. Barry Zito has been with us for 5 long, hard, arduous, painful (i could list off a lot of adjectives here but I’ll stop now) years and he’s about to start his 6th season as a Giant. Last year we saw a new approach to dealing with his failures: DL him witih a phantom injury. I’m assuming the club came up with this one in Year 2 or 3 but decided they couldn’t activate the plan until Year 5. I’m not saying Zito wasn’t hurt last year, he was. But his sprained ankle didn’t require even 1/5th of the DL time he spent (2 separate stints, right?). Expect the DL move to get used more often in 2012. The plan for 2013 might be to get him a gig as the next Spinal Tap drummer (that one was for ‘Tap enthusiasts, I hope there are some Flappers out there who claim that group)….

Let’s take a look at the contract, shall we?

Before the 2007 season he signed a 7 year/126 million dollar deal. Sabean’s contribution to *screwing* Boras was the *club option* in 2014. Ha, Sabes will have him right where he wants him come *club option* time!!!!!

Here’s what Zito’s made in his career:

Now, I’m not gonna say the A’s got the best years of this dude, cause Zito could go out and win 70 games over the next three years and show Beane he’s a penny pinching pussy and Sabean is a free-agent signing savant. But let’s just say that, for now, the A’s seem to have gotten the best years of Barry Zito. For n……o……w….

My favorite thing about the Zito contract? He gets a suite at every road game to pack his whores into. He’s married now so I’m not sure where he’s going to have his wife sit. Having her sit next to D’antoni’s 2 whores just seems uncouth. Problems waiting to happen. Oh well, he’s got the dough, he can buy a suite for his girl and her friends  too.

The last year of the deal is the best. There’s an 18 million dollar team option in 2014 if Zito pitches 200 innings in 2013 or 400 innings total in 2012+2013. But if this option vests, Zito can opt out and recieve a 3.5 million dollar buy out (theoretically allowing him a chance to hit the FA market again for ANOTHER 100 billion dollar deal). If the option doesn’t vest, the team gets to give him a 7 million dollar buy out for his *troubles*. So Zito better not hit his innings-vest number or he loses 3.5 million…..I know it wasn’t Sabean’s decision to sign Zito, it was a management team thing, but he got hoodwinked at best and fucked at worst on the back end of this contract…..

Anyway, this was my 5 minute Barry Zito Rant, of which they’re have been many. They beat Haiku by about a minute. Ok, now, dinner time. Have a good one…..

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Retro…………..

It’s August 2nd, 1988. All in all, ’88 was a pretty disappointing year. We finished 4th, never led the division. This would have been a wild game to go to. Astros won 13-10. They scored 4 runs in 3 single innings. Reuschel started and got lit up. Bockus also got lit up. Two guys named Ron Davis and Roger Samuels pitched the final 3 (also getting lit up). Who are these guys?

I don’t know about you guys, but if I worked for the Giants I would volunteer with both hands up to be the team rep who greets Villalona when he gets off the plane next week. This guy was either in jail or under house arrest for 2 years. What kind of shape is this guy in? He was already a pretty big cat. He’s listed at 6’3 200 lbs but I could see him being a doughy 250 (or more) easily. For his sake, I hope he’s traveling *business class*.

He’ll be starting his career all over again, most likely in San Jose. Heck, he’s only 21, who knows what he’s going to do. But he was a strikeout machine BEFORE all this happened. Whatever the minor league strike out record is for a season I expect him to challenge it……

Between all the fake murder plot accusations and the kidnappings of ballplayers (and their family members) I don’t understand why a player with ANY money at all would ever return back to their homeland. You’re just a target, you’re asking for major trouble. In fact, if you’re a relative of a player still in the Dominican and you find out your uncle just scored a big mlb contract your first reaction is probably “Oh, shit. I’m fucked.”

I don’t care or even have an opinion about Villalona and the murder charge that was dismissed. All we know is that he paid a sizable settlement to the victim’s family. That doesn’t necessarily mean he did it. But I’m am all for some good theater and having him show up for Spring Training definitely qualifies as such. The photographers should all have their cameras set to *wide angle* when they try to fit him in a *shot*………

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Retro Tiempo Bebe

Sunday, October 5th, 1987. The final day of a season where we finished in first place. We beat the Braves in 10 innings on a walk off Bob Brenly home run. Randy Bockus got the win. Drafted in the 34th round by the Giants in 1982, it was his first career win. He would go on to record one more in his career…….

I watched MoneyBall  the morning of the NFC Championship Game–needed to take the edge off before the big game. Assuming it’s true that Boston offered him a gig to be the highest paid GM in baseball (at the time) I have to conclude that Billy Beane is nothing but a smoke and mirrors guy. He NEEDS the built in excuse that he’s always going to have while he toils away in Oakland. He can’t lose.  Maybe it’s a self esteem thing. As long as he cries about not having any money to sign the players needed to be competitive he can keep re-building and re-starting the franchise for as long as he chooses. It must be nice to be a genius that can’t win because he’s shackled by the inequities of a failed system. That’s what he wants everyone to believe anyway…..

Since 2006, the A’s have had an average team payroll of $62,000,000 per season. Beane cries and moans that this means he can’t win.

So sad. The whole world is against him. If only the playing field was level. His great genius would dwarf us……

In 2010 the Giants won the World Series with a payroll of $96,000,000. But $32 million of that was being paid to Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand–two guys who had nothing to do with that Series win. Take their dead pay out and you get $64,000,000 for your payroll…….

I’m just sayin’……..

Just took a look at the poll from yesterday, the only player to NOT get a vote was Angel. So, either no one knows who he is or everyone has ultimate confidence in him. Let’s do another poll with the same criteria from yesterday but going the other way. Of the 10 listed, what is the MOST LIKELY to happen. Freddy edged out Zits for LEAST LIKELY to happen….

Let’s see if the inverse response is in effect…….

7 days till pitchers and catchers report. One week. Me likey…….

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Retro Game of the Day!!!!!!!

It’s Sunday, August 16th, 1987 and 52,374 showed up for this epic game vs the Dodgers. LaCoss vs Welch. This one was still 0-0 going to the 10th and LaCoss came out and retired the side for his 10th inning of the game. Robby came up to start the 10th and struck out looking. Uribe grounded out and it looked like we would be going to the 11th. Chili pinch hits for LaCoss who must have been doing a slow burn in the dugout. He singles. Eddie Milner comes up and doubles to left. Chili beats the throw home and the Giants win 1-0. LaCoss gets the win. Insanity ensues…..

Below are 10 question marks going into the 2012 season. Until I wrote them all down I didn’t realize how horribly wrong this upcoming season could go if some or all of these don’t happen. Since at least a few (and maybe several) of these things aren’t going to happen, I know this is am impossibly difficult poll to take but give it a shot anyway……

1) Buster Posey catching at least 100 games in 2012

2) Ryan Vogelsong pitching as good (or close to it) as he did in 2011

3) Brandon Crawford hitting well enough to keep SS job

4) Melky Cabrera repeating (or coming close to) 2011

5) Angel Pagan bouncing back to his 2010 season

6) Huff bouncing back to his 2010 season

7) Barry Zito holding on to the #5 spot all year

8) Nate Schierholtz retaining the RF job and remaining injury free all year

9) Brandon Belt having a break through season

10) Freddy Sanchez staying healthy all year

I was taking a look at the stats of the blog this morning–We actually had approximately 2000 more visitors in January ’12 than we did in January of ’11. That’s a little surprising to me since we were coming off a WS win last year and this year we’re not really coming off of anything. I guess we’re coming INTO something. There are many reasons to be extremely hopeful for this coming season…….

Here’s a list of the top 21 posts since 11/10/11. You’ll notice the *BB of the Day(!)*  at the top–that’s a little misleading because I just change out the pics and the comments every day but it remains the same page. If you never check out that page you should should give it a go. It’s evolved into a daily *write the caption* contest and there are 7-10 regular Flappers who have me laughing my ass off on a daily basis. I’ve expanded the the criteria of what it takes to *qualify* for BB of the Day–I found this loosening of the standards encourages more creative captions. Anyway, as usual, you guys churn out the best of this blog with your comments………

As I usually do at least once an off season, I’m having some Candlestick Park moments this morning. I’ve always wanted to find a better pic than the one SI ran of the Dave Dravecky comeback game. I had that SI copy for years and then lost it somewhere. I remember the day my friend Jason came over to my house with it, proudly pointing out the image of he and I cheering in the crowd in the bleachers that day. He was right, you could totally see us. Man, what a day. I remember everything about that game. We decided to go at the last minute only because we had nothing else to do. Had no problem scoring a bleacher seat….

Here are some random pics I found this morning……

There is literally no event in the sporting world that i care about (I’ll have the slightest interest in the AT&T) until February 18th when pitchers and catchers are slated to report. You know it’s quiet when someone showing up to work is interesting to you…..

The Super Bowl was most definitely interesting. As I predicted, the Giants won but I thought  it would be a higher scoring game. In the end, it was very much like a 49er game–good defense, great special teams (Weatherford did a pretty good Andy Lee impression, didn’t he?) and someone making a play late (Manningham) that was the difference. The Giants were also quite effective in running the ball late. I also want to give Belichek big props (that’s hard for me to do since I hate him) for having the nut sack to tell his D to allow that late TD. Most coaches cling to the stupid approach of NOT doing that even though failing to do so ALWAYS leaves you with no time left on the clock. In this case, Brady got nearly a minute to work with. Weird scene watching Bradshaw TRY to sit down on the one yard line, he just couldn’t do it……..

I listened to a bit of the game on the radio. I think it was early 3rd quarter and the announcer was gushing over Brady and his epic performance, I think he’d completed like 14 in a row at that point. What an over-exaggeration. Most of his passes were dump offs. In fact, both quarterbacks had Y/A’s that were quite pedestrian (Eli 7.4, Brady 6.7).

This game was hardly a QB vs QB game that the network tried to bill it as. It was 2 football teams facing off with a player Manningham) making an unreal catch to essentially win the game for them. That’s what football games always are: who’s going to make a play that is the difference in the game. Yesterday it was Manningham. As usual, the brain-dead approach to picking the SB MVP was in effect–give it to the QB. In my book, Manningham is the MVP. That catch was better than the catch that the Giants receiver (can’t remember his name) made in ’07 to set up the game winner to Plaxico…..

It’s dark outside my window still. Cold, a little foggy….dark. I hate this time of the year……..

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Retro Temps of de Jour!

July 5th, 1987. We are in Chicago. I usually only do home games but this was a great day–Kevin Mitchell had just been traded to the Giants (along with Dravecky and Lefferts) and he promptly banged out 2 bombs to help us win. The Giants were losing 5-2 going to the 6th where they scored 2 and then 3 more in the 8th. Seeing Robby lead off it reminded me of how were really didn’t have  a leadoff hitter in ’87.

As I often do on the Day of Fan Fest I regret not going. This year I’m gone all weekend so I couldn’t go anyway. But I’d love to walk the park and just get a look at the guys.

I would have appreciated more information from John Shea on his article about The Panda.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/04/SPMV1N2U4I.DTL

The picture tagged to the article is of Panda’s left hand on his head with a look that seems to say “Uh oh, what have I done!?!?!”. The caption under the pic says “Pablo Sandoval gained weight this winter, which he blamed on his workouts but he looked good Friday.” Hmmmmm. Ok, that’s a little ambivalent. He *looked good Friday* but Pablo is *blaming* a weight gain on his Winter workouts. And it’s not like I can gather my own opinion because it’s just a picture of his head. Looking for more info I decide to read the article.

Problem: Shea gives very little information about these mysterious *workouts* that are blamed for the weight gain. Sandoval appears to make a veiled reference to it by saying part of the extra weight is from his Winter workouts in Arizona. Ok, so does that mean he was lifting a lot more and doing less cardio? The article isn’t clear about that. Using a caption that says he is *blaming* weight gain on workouts suggests something bad, like his body didn’t respond to the training the way it did last Winter. But if he’s adding muscle as the weight gain (because he’s lifting more and doing less cardio)  I don’t have a problem with that. Muscle is good. Muscle weighs more than fat. I’m fine with a muscular Panda. I’m not fine with a fat doughy Panda. Again, I am looking at a picture of Pablo with his hand on his forehead, no body shot, and he’s looking totally bummed out. There’s also a quote from Bochy about him saying “Pablo knows he’s got to lose weight, but he looked better than he did 2 weeks ago.”. Again, I have to say, huh? That sounds like a manager who’s saying his added weight was fat, not muscle. But Pablo’s saying it’s muscle…….

Bottom line: The Chronicle, either intentionally or not, published a story that left more questions than answers. I don’t mind that if it’s a picture to lure me into reading the article but the article created way more questions than it provided answers. Poor journalism, in my opinion……

As I said last night, I’m not worried about the Panda’s conditioning. I have to assume that if the team decided to hand him a LT deal for 17.15 million they must have done their due diligence on his level of commitment to conditioning his body. He would have to pass a physical to sign the deal so they obviously got a look at him. The Panda from November/December 2010 could not have passed a physical. So am I concerned about him despite the many questions left from the Shea article? No, I’m not……..

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Retro Tiempo!

It’s April 18th, 1987. The Giants were down 1-0 going to the 9th against the Braves. Candy tied it with a single in the 9th, Thrill ended it with a single in the 10th. 22,054 fans attended…….

After seeing Livan sign yet another deal to play in the major leagues in 2012 (well, it’s  a minor league deal but we all know this dude will be pitching into his 50’s. Hell, he might ALREADY be pitching in his 50’s) it got me to wondering who else from the 2002 team might still be playing ball.

Here’s a link to the roster from baseball almanac.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=2002&t=SFN

According to them, 38 players made at least an appearance for the Giants in 2002. Besides Livan there is a single player who played in the major leagues in 2011: Cody Ransom. He hit .667 for us in that magical year with a mind blowing OPS of 1.417! Of course, he did that in only 7 at bats.

It’s a trip to see the names on that list and not really connect to many of them. Chad Zerbe? Tom Goodwin? Jay Witasick? I remember them, I just don’t remember them any more fondly than I remember the guys from the 2007 roster. Or the 1982 roster. They were just guys, a lot of them……

Ryan Jensen? I was surprised to see that he started 30 games for us in 2002. He went 13-8 and finished 6th in ROY voting. That was easily his best year in the major leagues:

What an improbable single season Jensen had for us in 2002……..

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Retro Time

Hello, 1987. It’s Opening Day, April 6th. Bring it. Kevin Mitchell and Dave Dravecky (in July), first place and, apparently, Will Clark leading off the home opener. He went 3 for 6. I swear to God, it still blows my mind that Will Clark never had 200 hits in a season. We won the home opener 4-3 in 12 innings on a Chili Davis single off Dravecky to score Hacman. Sounds like a fun game.

FanFest is this weekend. Giants are expecting less people, less problems, say they’ve improved it, etc. I haven’t been to a Fanfest but if I did go it would just be to walk around the field, take a look at how the players took care of themselves over the off season, snap pictures, stuff like that.

What I would NOT do is ask a player for his autograph. I don’t get why fans seek out autographs. I get the OBVIOUS answer that certain autographs have value and can be re-sold because there’s a market out there for it. But outside of that, I don’t see what’s so great about someone signing their name for you. I’d much rather snap a candid picture, something you wouldn’t find in an everyday google search.

I’d be interested in a player GIVING me something they had USED, like a bat, a ball or their batting gloves. That would be cool. Study it, imagine them being used in game situations. I wouldn’t spend more than a second looking at an autograph no matter how cool their signature looked…….

Anyway, good luck to those of you who are brave enough to sludge through Fanfest. My dad went a couple of years ago and got some awesome pics of the players. He didn’t get any autographs…….

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It’s Retro Time…….

10/2/86. Final game of the season. 8K fans showed up. Pathetic. We lost 2-1 in DISaster fashion. Garrelts blew the save in the 9th, Caveman lost it in the 10th. Mike Woodard led off for us and played 2nd base. He had nearly 200 at bats for the Giants over the course of 3 years. I can’t remember anything about him…….

I just saw that Livan signed a minor league deal with the Astros. Man, 2012 and that dude is still pluggin’ along. It’s a pretty dark morning here at The Flap so I thought I’d toss out a *Livan* thread and see if any of you want to share your best memories of him. It doesn’t get much darker than this, does it?

First, some info/highlights of his career:

He claims to be 36 years old.

He was traded to us from Florida for Nate Bump and Jason Grilli in 1999.

In 4 seasons for us he was 45-45. In 4 seasons with Florida he was 24-24. Over 16 seasons and 7 different teams, he’s 174-176.

Here’s the dough he’s made:

And that’s about it for my Livan memories. You guys got any?

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Retro Game ‘0 da Day!

It’s 9/11/86 and we won 2-1. I couldn’t let this game go by without a shout out to our starting catcher, Phil Ouellete. Signed by the Giants in ’81 he was released in December of ’87. Here is the stat summary of his career in the major leagues:

I always trip out on dudes like this……..Anyway, looks like he caught a hell of a game. In the bottom of the 6th, he singled with one out. He did not advance. It would be 1 of 4 hits he’d get in his career. I bet his heart was pounding through his chest that inning……

I hear many of the local talk-radio callers saying they aren’t going to be watching the Super Bowl. I don’t get that at all. It’s the freaking Super Bowl. I haven’t missed a Super Bowl since……I don’t know how young I was. Whether you care about the game or not or ever understand football, everyone I have ever known carves out the time to watch this game. It’s an event that’s becomes the excuse you need to do whatever: drink. Eat lots of cheese. See old friends. Gamble. Ah, gamble…..

It’s not a stretch to say that neither one of these teams *deserve* to be here. Ha, there’s that word again: DESERVE. It’s a loaded word that suggests a lot more than it actually means. In this case, it simply means that neither team is invincible. Far from it. If Evans *makes a play* instead of having a play made on him, Baltimore is in the Super Bowl. If Kyle Williams….nevermind, not gonna go there……..

Bottom line is that these are the two teams in the Super Bowl. My analysis on this game is pretty simple. I think the Gaints defense is significantly better than New England’s and I think that New England’s offense isn’t THAT much better than the Giants—Eli has too many weapons and is playing too good for Brady to have a huge edge here. Eli’s magnificent play in the Niner game didn’t get nearly the credit it deserved—in horrendous weather he dealt with a hellacious pass rush virtually the entire game. He was hit 20 times. And yet he kept wiggling and worming his way out of trouble, doing just enough at the right time to keep the ball and move the offense. Against a sh!tty New England defense, he’ll thrive. And we saw what Brady did against a good defense last week. Not much. The Giants defense is at least in the same ballpark as Baltimore’s………

And here’s another nugget that cannot be ignored. New England is a paper tiger. An easier schedule they could not have had. They went 13-3 this year. Of their 13 wins, they didn’t beat a single team who ended the season with a winning record. Not one. Their 3 losses were to Buffalo, Pittsburgh and the Giants–2 of those 3 had season ending winning records and the third, Buffalo, was 2-0 at the time they played them. Granted, the Patriots finally beat a team with a winning record last week, but they needed a brilliant defensive play late (ha, don’t count on too many of those from that crap defense) and a surreal field goal miss by the Baltimore kicker to win it.

I don’t think the Giants are that much better. But they’re 3 point underdogs.  They will beat New England this Sunday by at least 3 points and as many as 13………

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Retro Action

It’s August 20th 1986. Krukow is facing off against a journeyman named Don Carman. I don’t remember him. Kruk went 10 innings and took the loss 1-0. Ouch.

Clay Hensley. Ryan Theriot. The Warriors. The Pro Bowl. A Niner-less Super Bowl. It’s that time of the year when there isn’t much to look forward to unless pining away for FanFest (Feb 4th) is how you float your boat. Last year we had the World Series Trophy Tour to track. This year, not so much. I could use a Haiku or two to perk me up. My bask has basked. Time for a Retro search and some focused BB scanning. Back tomorrow……..

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Retro Game of the Day!

It’s August 5th, 1986 and though it seems like a dream, it wasn’t. Steve Carlton started for us vs the Reds. Lefty got left for dead by an average Reds team managed by Pete Rose. They won 10-1. Rose cleaned up. Carlton was picked up by us on July 4th of ’86 and released 2 days after this horrific effort. He’s 67 years old now…….

My mind was blown this morning when I saw the Dodgers have narrowed down the list of prospective ownership groups. Bring the big wallet if you want to roll with these cats. The bids are all north of 1 billion dollars. Currently the high bid is 1.5 billion with rumors it might go as high as 1.7 BILLION. Bud Selig just creamed himself. This will directly effect the Giants some day. Any ownership group dropping 1.7 bil on their new toy won’t have a problem in the world with a 200 million dollar yearly payroll and paying off the luxury tax with change found in their couch cushions. Get ready for the *Yankees West*. As long as Coletti is GMing I’m not too worried about it, but what about when the new group hires a competent GM? It’s really hard to miss when your payroll is 200 million. Or more. Side Note: Very bummed that the big winner in all of this is going to be Frank McCourt…….

Here’s a list of the value of mlb teams according to Forbes . This list came out last March. Expect a new, adjusted one this March with the Dodgers leap frogging the Red Sox…..

1. Yankees 1.7 billion

2. Red Sox 912 mil

3. Dodgers 800 mil

4. Cubs 773 mil

5. Mets 743 mil

6. Phillies 609 mil

7. Giants 563 mil

8. Rangers 561 mil

9. Angels 554 mil

10. White Sox 526 mil

11. St Louis 518 mil

12. Twins 490 mil

13. Braves 482 mil

14. Astros 474 mil

skipping some of these, I’m logging this by manually…..

26. Royals 351 mil

27. Toronto 337 mil

28. Tampa 331 mil

29. Oakland 307 mil

30. Pirates 304 mil

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RGOTD

It’s August 24th, 1986. The Polish Prince was dealin’ today, we steam rolled The Mets 10-1. Kruk went 20-9 this season.

It turns out that Mike Fontenot’s contract is NOT guaranteed. That surprised me, I thought that if the team chose to tender you a contract (arbitration or otherwise) what ever was ultimately agreed upon would be guaranteed. Not so. I’ve looked around the internet and can’t find much explaining the non-guaranteed side of these deals. Is this clause written into all contracts of players under 6 yrs of service who have agreed to a 1 year deal prior to the upcoming season? If any of you have info on it, please share……

So now we have 2 guys on non-guaranteed deals (Fontenot and Theriot) and one guy (Burriss) who is out of options who will fight it out for 2 spots.  Hello, cut-throat competition. The convention thought would be that The Bayou Boyfriends are in and  Burriss is out but I’m wondering if this might indirectly affect Brett Pill. Burriss plays many positions (including 1st base) and that flexibility (along with the fact that he’s a late inning stolen base threat and a switch hitter) might make him more valuable than Pill. I would disagree with this line of thinking. Burriss HAS played many positions but that doesn’t mean he’s played them well or that he’s played them with enough regularity to feel confident that he could play, say first base, competently in the late innings of a game. Plus, Pill has the one thing that our bench sorely lacks: right handed power.

We’ve added some speed to the team this year (in descending order, Pagan, Cabrera and Theriot). I’m not as worried as I was last year about having to go station to station all the time. What we still don’t have is power off the bench and I think that’s what makes Pill so valuable to our 2012 team….

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Retro Game of the Day!

July 5th, 1986– One year LATER we trade for Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky and Craig Lefferts. Today, we lost to the Cardinals 7-4 but we’re still in first place. Vida didn’t have it today, walking 6 in 6 innings.

Are you in trouble if you find out that your best starting pitching prospect in the minors is Eric Surkamp? Yikes. How did this get so bad? For years the Giants focused on nothing BUT drafting and developing pitchers. Over the last few years they’ve stock piled some pretty decent hitting prospects and that’s one reason why Steve Decker has been re-assigned to work as the Coordinator of Minor League Hitting. This is actually good news. I’ve always felt it would be a better approach to draft hitters so they would HAVE to play for us at ATT rather than try to sign them as free agents (and most of them don’t want to come to SF to hit). Conversely, free agent pitchers would be much more likely to want to sign with SF because of our park dimensions. We haven’t seen Sabean dabble in the FA pitching dept because that staff has been rock solid for the last few years and we’re all still feeling the effects of the Zito hangover. But the free agent pitcher route COULD be the direction Sabean is forced to start taking in the upcoming years…….

But back to the minor league pitching system. What happened to it? The problem isn’t that we aren’t drafting pitchers. We are.

In 2008, we drafted 8 pitchers in the 1st 12 rounds.

In 2009, we drafted 8 pitchers in the 1st 15 rounds (Wheeler was our #1 draft pick this year)

In 2010, we drafted 9 pitchers in the first 18 rounds

IN 2011, we drafted 14 pitchers in the 1st 22 rounds…..

That’s 39 pitchers. And that number is actually much higher since I only looked at a select number of rounds in each of those years……

We haven’t stopped drafting pitchers. We have either stopped drafting GOOD pitchers or we have stopped developing them. Or both. In the 4 years of drafts listed above, the notable draftees are Wheeler (gone), Hembree (future closer) and Surkamp (drafted in 6th rd of ’08). What has become of the other 36 pitchers drafted? I haven’t taken the time to follow where each of them is as of this moment but I’m guessing it’s not good. The ’10-’11 guys are being *developed* so they get a mini-pass but it’s not like we are *hearing* anything about them as hot prospects. And the ’08–’09 guys better get it going quick or they are headed for a new profession and/or AAA staff filler stuff……

But make no mistake about it, if we’re talking about who’s up next as a starting pitcher from the minors it’s Eric Surkamp and he’s standing in a line of one. It’s not the end of the world, especially for 2012. We are likely only going to need to fill the 5 hole once we DL Zito with a phantom injury around the middle of May. That’s why the Giants signed a guy like Clay Hensley yesterday. He’s on a non-guaranteed mlb deal. They’re probably sign at least one more guy like that…….

It’s not time to panic yet. But I hope we are developing the shit out of the 2010-11 pitching draftees because holes in the rotation are coming in future years and if our current staff is ever hit with an injury bug we are totally screwed for that season. We need to hit something big in this upcoming draft……

Just base it off how much excitement and passion for the game they brought to you. This is a pretty difficult list to compile and you either won’t be able to do it or you won’t be satisfied with the end result. A good question that helps is “How many times did you jump off your couch or out of your chair or just *up and down* because of something they did…….

In particular order…….

1) Will Clark. He’s my favorite Giant of all time and he’s the only one who ever inspired me to jump out of a window –grand slam off Maddux, ball sails high, disappears into the Chicago night line, and I bee-lined across my dorm room, over my friends and out the 3rd story window. Seemed like a prudent thing to do at the time. That was an extreme example of being overcome with emotion and excitement for my team. But Will had it all– the sweet swing, the kick ass nickname. I’ve never seen someone look MORE like a ball player. He’s #1 for me………

2) Barry Bonds. Barry hit 586 HR’s as a Giant. I would guess that I saw 500 hundred of them or so. That could be a high estimate though it FEELS like I saw him hit 2000 hone runs. He was a monster at the plate. Every time he came to bat, no matter the circumstance, I was a rocket ship waiting for lift off. Just like the baseball he was about to send into orbit…….

3) Kevin Mitchell. Kevin was exciting upon arrival. A July 5th trade in 1987 brought him to us (along with Dravecky and Lefferts). In his first game (or at least the first game I remember him playing for us) he banged out two home runs in Chicago. He was a bad ass. And as a fan of the team I was now a bad ass  by association. Kevin’s career wasn’t long with us but he was the essence of excitement and passion from the first day he showed up until he left. Plus, as I said: BAD ASS. Loved this dude.

4) Tim Lincecum. The leader of the pitching staff that brought us our single World Series. Timmy was all-excitement and hype way before he made his debut for us in 2007. He showed up looking like a little boy with that short haircut. His hair grew and so did his legend and the excitement he brought to us. He became a rock star without the instrument or the band. This picture of him moments after we won the Series, hair flying around, #1 sign pointed up and him belting out a the primal scream of victory— it’s the greatest picture I’ve ever seen. He’s in my top 5 for this moment alone….

5) Rod Beck. This last spot was tough to fill. Jack Clark and Matt Williams almost made it. And maybe I’m being too sentimental about him because he’s gone. But everything about this guy, to me, was exciting. Long hair, arm swinging back and forth between pitches. 199 of his 286 saves were as a Giant. I’d guess maybe 20 of those 199 were 1-2-3 innings, lol. As his career wore on I think he, more than anyone, started getting guys out because of his passion for his game and not the physical skill set he brought to the mound. Shooter was the shit. Easily one of my all time favorite Giants…..

Those are my top 5. I’d love to hear who yours are if you have the time to post it in the thread……

I’m completely fine with Timmy and the Giants agreeing to a 2 year deal. It doesn’t mean much to us since we get him for the next 2 years either way. But there is some resolution to the question of whether he was planning on being a Giant once his free agent years begin: He’s not (regardless of the bs his agent says now).

If he wanted to be, he would have signed the 5 year/100 million deal that the Giants extended to him. By turning that down he’s going to maximize the gynormous deal that he can get in 2014. Someone is going to give him a “Fielder Deal”–I call that “The Fat and Stupid” deal. It will not be us. The Giants don’t roll that way. I’ve come to realize that owners of big market teams simply don’t care about the length or size of the deals they are handing out to these super stars. They KNOW the back end of all these deals won’t be worth it. They don’t care. The revenue they have coming in more than makes up for it. It’s funny, Sabean’s 7 year/126 million dollar volcanic mistake to Zito now looks like nothing.

Sierra Nevada came back to The Flap last night and dropped a nugget that I wasn’t aware of: Tim doesn’t ice his arm after starts. I did some light googling on that claim and it appears to be true. Tim’s dad says “ice is for injuries.” Tim has gotten bad advice from his dad on this and it blows my mind that the team would supports such nonsense.

I would never have been supportive of a l0ng term deal for Lincecum BEFORE I heard about the no-ice thing but that sealed the deal for me. It would be lunacy to be responsible for paying him well into his 30’s. We got the best years of that arm. I’ll use the goodbye we used for Benjie: “Thanks for the mammaries, Timmy”. Maybe after 4 or 5 more years of his In and Out diet that goodbye might be appropriate…….

I’ll end with the best part of all of this: If we are 8-10 games out of it in late July of 2013 does Sabean pull the trigger and trade Tim for a “Wheeler or two?” I doubt you’d get 2 Wheeler’s since he’d be a 2 month rental. But it would make sense if the team is just spinning it’s wheels at that time. He has a limited no-trade clause but I’d be surprised if he would mind getting traded to a team with a big shot to win the WS that year. Why not try to pick up another ring before his “Fat and Stupid” contract comes up? Would Sabean have the balls to trade him? If we’re in that situation, I hope he does……..

As was noted at the end of yesterday’s thread, the Red Sox signed Cody Ross to a 1 year, 3mill deal. Here’s what we know: Ross was initially seeking a 3 year deal. The Giants never made him a single offer. He expressed regret about that saying (and I’m paraphrasing here, I couldn’t find the article) “I’ll miss this place, I really wish they had made me an offer, I didn’t want to leave, etc…”

I think it’s obvious that Ross misjudged his market. But I think he landed in an outstanding spot to resurrect his career and maybe that’s why he took that deal and could have gotten more $ or an extra year somewhere else. Maybe. Between the dimensions of that park, getting to hit in the AL East and only 2 established outfielders (Crawford and Ellsbury) who both could get hurt filing their nails, I think he gets a lot of playing time in Boston this year and he will hit well. So maybe that’s it……

But jeez, he DID say he wanted to come back. He almost seemed sad to leave based on the comments that I was unable to locate (but paraphrased above). Pawlie Kokonuts suggested it was a pride thing and I could totally see that. I’m having a hard time thinking it was a $ issue. If you had told Sabean that he could have Ross for 1y/3m I would think he would jump on that and have no problem finding that in the budget. But who knows, I suppose it’s possible that the budget is rock solid at 130 million…..

Bozo the Clown DID get POTD recently for suggesting that Sabean do the very thing that the Red Sox did yesterday. Here it was:

“Bozo said, on January 18, 2012 at 7:15 am

Hey Blade, good job parking that car on the flowers.

I know it would just be a ST invite, but Gregor Blanco? Are you fucking kidding me.?
A shout out here to Bobby Evans, I don’t complain much and I do understand budget issues and all but Gregor Blanco? You see Bobby, I’m thinking maybe just maybe you can squeeze a few million from your ol’ pal Larry and perhaps pick up that clown wannabe, you know, Cody Ross. At this point you can probably get him on a one year deal and the Giant would then, truly have some OF depth. Don’t get me wrong Bobby, I love Nate and as exciting as a platoon of Huff, Belt and Pill would be I’m thinking adding a true OFer just might be some decent insurance to have.
Thanks in advance.
Bozo”

Now, I gave him POTD for 2 reasons: 1) I liked that it was in letter form to Evans and he ended it with a pleasant sign off 🙂  2) He made a very funny reference to Blade’s picture

I did not give him POTD for the Ross ref, I barely noticed it. I guess I didn’t even consider the fact that we could get him for 1y/3mil.  And maybe we couldn’t. What he signed for with BoSox might not be what he would sign for with us. But did Sabes even consider it? I would like to think so. I’m hoping so. If he did I guess he passed on doing so after thoughtful consideration. Again, I have to assume he actually considered it. Ross wasn’t ever connected to a Red Sox rumor so I am assuming this developed recently. I would also assume that if it DID develop recently then there wasn’t anyone else out there making him a BETTER offer or he would have signed it already. But who knows, maybe he is just a very patient dude and this is exactly what he was looking for—a great opportunity to rebuild his career……..

All I know is that Justin Christian is our 5th outfielder right now and maybe our 4th OF if Belt starts the year in Fresno. There is also a dude named Gregor Blanco who is in the mix, at least in Spring Training. This does not secure my confidence in our outfield depth…..

Good luck to Cody in Boston this year. Like I said, I think he’ll do well. But I’ve got one piece of advice for Boston fans sitting along the 3rd baseline during Cody’s at bats: Duck!

I posted on Saturday that I saw Roger Craig at my friend’s restaurant and spun it to mean this was a sign we were going to win. Hmmmm. Clearly I need to go back to “Sign Reading Skool” because there’s now no doubt what his sighting was really all about. “Hello Kyle Williams.”  Actually, I should say “Goodbye Kyle Williams.” I don’t see how he would survive this and still be a Niner next year. Maybe if he was an established receiver. But the bottom line is, Kyle Williams just isn’t very good. He’s fast. So was Renaldo Nehemiah.

Anyway, KW was forced into a role yesterday that ate him up in the end. Two horribly timed mistakes. The first one was a brain cloud melt down. You learn in pop warner to get away from that ball. The 2nd one was also a mistake simply because there is no way in hell you can fumble the ball in that situation and he didn’t look to be doing anything extra to hold on to it. In fact, he didn’t secure it with both hands till the last second and by then the defender was making a  play to strip the ball from him–too late to secure it.

It’s funny, after the Niners took the lead in the 4th Q and the defense stopped the Giants and forced that kick from their goal line, it was the first time I was allowing myself to start believing that this was actually happening (SB appearance). We had just taken the lead and had all the momentum after the D stopped the Giants. I envisioned a nice drive by Alex, maybe another score and then put the end of the game in the D’s hands. Then Williams did that weird hesitation dance thing. And the ball just….bounced the wrong way. Grazed his knee. Poof. Momentum gone. Dream of Super Bowl. Gone.

But I’m not going there today. We lost the game for a lot of reasons. In fact, pretty much all facets of our game were substandard yesterday except for our magnificent defense. Even our defense, the absolute rock for us in this game, didn’t force a single turnover all day. And 1 for 13 on third down conversions? What the HELL is that? Crabtree was ghost-like. Rogers was awful in the first half covering Cruz. Our offense was pretty ineffective. Alex was ok, but he missed a couple of wide open guys and threw more balls at ankles than he has in quite some time. Lots of blame to go around. I didn’t blame KW solely for the loss last night and I’m not going to do it today.

If anything, I’m just gonna put this one on Roger Craig. I’m used to blaming him for stuff and I’m good at it. And seriously, who goes to a restaurant and sits at a table next to his framed jersey? Pompous ass. We deserved to lose because of that. 🙂 🙂 🙂

It was a fabulous, magical season. I’ll never forget it…….

I was awakened this morning by one of my cats bringing me a GIANT dead rabbit. Not a bunny. A fully grown, probably 2 pound rabbit. I took  him outside, walked along the muddy ground in my bare feet and flung the beast, or at least tried to, over the deer fence. It was GIANT. It was Eli Manning. I was Aldon Smith. Surrounded by cold darkness, I waited for a flag to get thrown my way. None came. Personal foul? Not this morning…….

Everything I’m doing these days gets turned into something Niner related…….

After beating the Saints last week, I wrote about how great it felt to have that Niner Pride return after all these years. As a fan, there’s nothing like your *first* championship (Niners in ’81, Giants in 2010)  but even that doesn’t compare to being a fan of a team that builds a dynasty. That’s what the 49ers did and we wore those colors with a type of pride afforded to fans of only a handful of teams. Your team won a Super Bowl? That’s great, “We Got 5”. But it slowly started slipping away and saying or even thinking “We Got 5” wasn’t something I did too much of over the last 10 years or so……

As this year wore on I didn’t realize or notice it, but the Pride was making it’s way back. I started seeing more red and gold on the streets and in line at the market. Radio talk shows shifted away from blaming the York’s for everything to actual debates about the validity of what the team was doing this year. We won the division, locked up the #2 seed, the playoffs began and then we played New Orleans. Still, that long lost Pride hadn’t found it’s way back from it’s long hibernation…..

And then with one magical throw, a dead-clutch grab, and one of the best radio calls I’ve ever heard (Robinson/Davis) it all came rushing back to me. Watching Candlestick shake her old bones last Saturday, the same way she did so many times before so many years ago, had me crying like a girl. For me, that’s why The Vernon Post will always be so special. It found something for me that had drifted away many years ago: Niner Pride. “We Got 5”. I imagine it was that way for a lot of you…….

I found a post I wrote at Chuck’s blog a few months ago. Here it is:

Flavor says:

I’m working on killing off just about 34 more hours. Gonna coach a basketball game. Probably eat a few times. Facebook, blog, etc…

Romo signed and not the one who missed the playoffs (he of a single playoff victory on his resume). Anything under 2 mil is a bargain for his services. If that dude could ever get his head straight with the right closer mind set he could go *Eck* on us. But by his own admission, his head isn’t there yet……

I understand the A’s are getting rid of all their best players so that Wolf can try to break it down to his frat bro Bud that his team can’t succeed in Oakland. And they need to avoid falling on the wrong side of a basement $ number to not get hit with a “We don’t spend enough $” penalty. But they are working on a pretty random trifecta right now. After signing Bartfatso Colon they then picked up Jonny Gomes. Now they’re looking to sign Manny Ramirez to be there DH. Who had those 3 going to the A’s this year?

OK, that paragraph just killed off another 2 minutes. How many hours till game time?

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Retro Game of the Day! (Since I referenced them, let’s roll with a *Guest Post* from the A’s. Might be fun to take a look at the AL for a second). It’s July 23rd, 1986 and the A’s are playing the Red Sox in Oakland. 15K showed up. This was back in the day where Oakland could actually outdraw a Giants game every now and again. Dave Stewart was going against Nipper. The A’s handled him easily 9-2.

If you’re named “Roberto Heredia” and you decide to assume a new identity to *make yourself younger* wouldn’t you go with something like “Juan Gomez” or something non-descript and under-the-radar? Ha, not Bobby H, he goes all-in with “Fausto Camona!”. Isn’t that a name that should always have an exclamation point after it, no matter what the context? Maybe he was planning on becoming a magician in the States if the baseball thing didn’t work out…..

I keep checking to see if the Super Bowl is being played at Candlestick this Sunday. That’s how the media has been covering it. The Merc and the Chron have already written articles on pretty much every individual or side story that could possibly be written. What will they write about if the Niners actually make it to the Super Bowl? It’s not a big surprise, this is an area that expects success when we get this close to the Super Bowl. Including ’81, by my count we are 5-5 in Conference Championship games (though I’ve read and heard 4-4 and I don’t understand why I’m counting it as 5-5) and are 5-0 in Super Bowls. If I was a Minnesota or Buffalo fan (combined 0-8 in Super Bowls) I would be like, “Uh oh, here we go again.”

I have to hand it to Alex Smith. He’s the anti-Flacco. While Flacco was busy running his mouth about how he won’t get any credit if the Ravens win the SB, Smith continues to be utterly silent on the topic of his remarkable success this year. Not one “I told you so” to the masses who never believed in him. No matter what happens this Sunday he has achieved a sense of peace that his hard work and perseverance has earned him. He is a brilliant role model for any young person on how to conduct yourself as a human being. I couldn’t be happier for him……..

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Retro Game of the Day!!!!!!!!!!!

April 30th, 1986. A Wednesday game that saw just 5,147 fans show up. They were treated to a thrilling extra inning affair that saw Chris Brown tie the game in the bottom of the 9th with a sac fly and win it with a single in the bottom of the 12th. The other day on his radio show, Krukow said that Chris Brown was the most talented player he ever saw in terms of potential unrealized.

As I gazed at the *future contract obligation* chart, I couldn’t help but notice how skillfully the Giants organization has set up the future for the team in terms of financial flexibility. With Zito coming off the books in 2013 (the big money, not the 7 million *pocket change* buy out in 2014) the Giants can start pursuing big name free agents again and still keep the payroll below where it will be this year (130 mil range).

But what if they stayed in house and just signed BOTH Timmy and Cainer to 5 year, 100 million+ deals? With Sabean’s propensity for *building the team around pitching* I almost think it’s a guarantee that he tries to go that route (sign Cainer to a LT extension this year, sign Timmy to a 2 year deal this year and then go LT starting in 2014). The upside fallout to that is that we could trade them if we fall out of contention except for the probable fact that both  would have no-trade clauses written in and/or will become 10/5 guys at some point during a long term deal….

By the way, I don’t think this will happen since I am setting the odds at 3/5 that Timmy signs a long term deal with Seattle when he finally becomes a free agent…..

But looking at it just from a *Can we do this* money-standpoint, it’s nice to see that sheet free and clear in the upcoming years…….

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Retro Game of the Day–Hello 1986!

April 15th, 1986– loved this year. Look at those names. We lost 8-3 on Opening day in front of 46,000 fans. But I don’t care. Just look at those names. 🙂

Nate *got his* with a 1.3 million dollar deal. Pablo avoided arbitration by signing a 3 year, 17million dollar contract. Incentives are included. I couldn’t be happier for Pablo–a guy who worked his ass off to re-capture the focus and train his body to a level it has never been before in his life.

Timmy filed at 21.5 million with the Giants checking in at 17mil. I’m wondering if a 2 year/40 million dollar deal is coming……..

Great friend to the blog, Steve (aka *Blade from Colorado*) checked in from his trip to Boquete, Panama. Sounds like he’s having a whirlwind of a time. Here are a few pics he sent me:

The first one is of Steve preparing to storm the city. They don’t know what’s about to hit ’em. The 2nd one is where he spent his quiet time writing winter Haiku about the Giants. The 3rd one is where you go to rent movies, I guess, in Boquete, Panama. How’d you like to be the city gardener responsible for taking care of that? Have fun dude but most importantly, STAY OUTTA TROUBLE!!!!!!!!!!!

The Giants avoided arbitration with Angel Pagan yesterday. Too bad, that’s likely the only case they would have WON. They’ve got 6 more to deal with and, unlike Pagan, all 6 had very good years that improved on their previous year: Melky, Casilla, Timmy, Sergio, Pablo and Nate. But how much does an improved year have to do with a raise in arbitration and how much of it just depends on service time?

It’s always kinda odd to me that a player in his arb years makes more money each successive year regardless of how he did the season before. Pagan, for example, made 3.5 million last year. His 2011 season was worse than his 2010 season, that’s not even debatable. And yet the Giants avoid arbitration with him by agreeing to pay 4.85 million with plate appearance incentives that can get him to an even 5 million for the year.

I’m not debating what they ultimately agreed on, Pagan was projected to make 4.70 million in arbitration. From what we’ve heard, he sounds like a bit of a moody dude, probably best to make him happy and not have to go through the arb process where the Giants are forced to point out all his faults in an effort to save a few bucks.

I’m assuming there’s something in the CBA that covers this but I couldn’t find it: Is there a minimum set % increase in salary based on service time? Because that would be the only thing that would explain why Pagan would make 4.85mil in 2012, a 27% salary increase if he doesn’t hit his plate incentives, coming off a worse year than he had in 2011.

Since they are now forever linked, Andres Torres will be an interesting case to watch. He made 2.2mil last year, a number that we all know was far below what he was worth from a WAR standpoint in 2010. But 2011 was pretty much of a lost year for him. Will he get offered a standard percentage raise off the 2.2 mil simply because he’s got another year of service in the bank? I don’t know the answer to this…..

My guess is that Torres would make somewhere around 3.2 million considering his service time and if he went through the arbitration process. However, that’s just a guess.  If correct, the Giants are shelling out about 2 million more for Pagan, a clear indication that they think he’s more likely than Torres to have a bounce back year in 2012. I happen to agree with them though I could easily see being wrong about that……

It will be interesting to see how the remaining 6 arbitration cases go for the Giants. I’d like to see Timmy go to arbitration just because it would be an electric circus to watch play out. If I’m Bobby Evans, I take a trip to visit Pablo and if he’s still in good shape I’d offer him a multi year deal and try to buy out some of his remaining years. The other 4 guys I think I’d let go through the arb process though I understand the advantages to agreeing outside of arbitration……..

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Retro GAME OF THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something interesting I’ve stumbled upon doing the RGOTD– Without all of the new teams (Colorado, Florida and Arizona) and sans interleague play, it’s remarkable how often the SAME TEAMS keep coming up in the schedule. As promised, I am skipping through ’85 at a brisk pace. Today is May 31st and we are playing the Phillies. I have no recollection of Ricky Adams but he was our starting 3rd baseman on this day. Krukow pitched 8 solid and the Giants got bombs from Davis and Adams (his first) to lead the way to a 4-3 victory over a pretty bad Philly team. Attendance was bad, as expected, only 7.755 die hards showed up…….

OK, I have to get back to something baseball related though my brain is still buzzing with all things football these days……

I see that Roy Oswalt still doesn’t have a team and there are consistent reports that he’s now looking at a 1-year deal for about 8 million. This makes little sense to me with all the pitching starved teams out there– I would think all you’d need is two teams competing for him to get him something better than 1y/8m.

But if that’s the case, I still don’t understand why they Giants don’t do a deal like that with Oswalt. They handed Voggy 8 million when they said the bank was tapped and I still don’t understand why they did that. They certainly didn’t have to give him a 2 year deal and they probably couldn’t have gotten away with giving him HALF that on a 2 year deal anyway. But whatever, he’s signed through 2013. I’m fine with that, I was one of the few people who believed in him early on last year.

My point is, if they’re going to be paying Voggy more than twice what they had to pay him, why not pick up Oswalt at an absolute bargain on a single year deal? No one anywhere outside of Barry Zito’s fantasy world believes he’s going to be able to help us in 2012. And Oswalt would probably LOVE to come here knowing how pitcher friendly our park is— put together a nice year and then hit the free agent market for one more contract—probably 2 years/20 mil if he has a good year for SF………

Now, how about those Niners, eh?

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Retro Action:

It’s Opening Day! Tuesday, April 9th, 1985. The 100 loss season! Bring it!

We won one of our very few on this day, 4-3. Probably won’t spend much time on ’85. David Green! Ack!

Earlier in the week, I wrote a thread titled “49er Fan Candlestick Moments”. Boy, did we ever get one yesterday. This was so different from The Catch, in so many ways. Back then, we’d always sucked, no one really knew what to do or how to act. But after 5 super bowl wins, as fans we came to expect a lot more from our team. We walked the earth with a type of pride afforded to us BECAUSE we were Niner fans. It was a type of pride given to us by our team and we earned it with all those years of faith. But when we started losing that pride eroded. A lot. Year after year piled on top of those years and for a long time that pride we carried as fans was nothing but a distant memory….

So when Vernon Davis caught the ball to win the game and send us to the NFC Championship game and the camera panned to a hysterical Davis and a crowd losing their collective mind, even though I wasn’t there, I was hit square in the face with the feeling of that long, lost Niner Pride. It was back. And recapturing something I’d lost felt so goddamn good. That’s why yesterday’s game was so special and will stay with me for a long, long time no matter what happens next week.

If you haven’t heard Ted Robinson and Eric Davis call this play, watch this video. And if you’re a Niner fan and you don’t choke up a little and  feel that pride rush back to you, flooding over your body like a tsunami, then you either aren’t human or you aren’t a Niner fan. Enjoy.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/san-francisco-49ers/09000d5d82600724/QB-Smith-to-TE-Davis-14-yd-pass-TD

*****Hey dudes– no update today. Keeping football front and center and squarely on the brain. Check out Chuck’s Blog for in-game commentary and *analysis*.

Ninersforever.com……….*******

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Taking a break from baseball to talk about this weekend’s 4 big football games. I have looked closely at all 4 and can find a reason to be optimistic about all 4 underdogs—

Denver +13.5 vs New England

Betting thoughts: Denver’s defense is decent and New England’s is horrible–that reason alone is reason enough to take the 13.5 points…….

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New York Giants +7.5 vs Green Bay

Betting thoughts: The Giants might have the most balanced team left in the playoffs (in terms of offense and defense). The extra 1/2 pt is huge. And Green Bay’s defense sucks. Eli’s been there, done that. Take the Giants and the points and the money line of +280 looks delicious and worth at least 20% of whatever you bet on the points

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Houston +7.5 vs Baltimore

Betting thoughts: Against a team like Baltimore who has a below average offense and a defense on it’s last legs in terms of *last stands*, that extra half point is big. I think Baltimore wins but Houston’s defense will smother that offense. I’d take the 7.5 here, though I like this game least of the 4………

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Niners +4 vs New Orleans

Betting Thoughts: I would take the  Niners all day long +4 pts but the +180 on the money line is a gift from God. New Orleans has put up amazing offensive numbers this season but almost every game they have done so has been against one of the bottom third defenses in the league. In fact, they haven’t faced a good defense all year except Houston and that was at the beginning of the year. They haven’t faced a top defense all season long. I think Candlestick will be rocking like it’s never rocked before and the noise and a defense that they haven’t seen all year will stuff the run and pressure Brees into a few picks and at least 4 sacks. Our offense will manage the ball, further frustrating an opponent that wants the ball for 60 minutes but will get it for less than half that, for sure. Niners are going to Green Bay baby. The only question in my mind is that it might not be Green Bay but actually Candlestick instead vs The Giants—that could absolutely happen……..

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As I’ve said many times before: Good coaches win. Great coaches cover. Decide if the coach is *great* and go with that…..

I was cleaning out my *pictures* folder and came across the pic of the hot dog that I was sold at the Giants game San Dawg and I went to a couple of years ago. Here it is:

It looked remarkably similar to every hot dog I ever bought at Candlestick….

I haven’t been out to a Niners game in years so I don’t know if they are still selling delectables like this bad boy….

The new stadium has always nailed food perfectly. The only time I’m not down with the garlic fries are when they’re too soggy but I felt like I got several good batches last season so maybe they’re fixing that. Aside from this *Candlestick park cooked dog* I have never had a bad hot dog at AT&T. My personal favorite is the Sheboygan brat–those are big, one is my max. There are a crap load of specialty stores inside the park that are selling pretty much everything you can think of–crab sandos, Caribbean food, lemon chicken….

It’s all expensive but the shop that will really get you is back in the left field bleachers where you build your own doll. It seems like a safe enough place to walk into but your wallet is immediately attacked from all sides. They start by stuffing the animal with, well, *stuffing* and then you get to start adding sh!t to it: accessorize the animal. My daughter got this black and white dog and added a Giants hat, a scarf, glasses, some dog-jewelry and freaking roller skates to this poor animal. There was also a leash that I assumed we would use to keep him from skating away to a family who would treat him with more dignity than us. I pleaded with her that it was borderline animal cruelty to put a dog in roller skates and parade him around the park for simple entertainment purposes. She would have none of that and quietly pointed to the line of 10 parents buying this exact thing for their kids. I was stuck. I sucked it up and told the staff responsible for *roller skating* the creature to put the skates on. His eyes were kinda glazed over and he wore a bit of a manical grin but he did as I requested. When the dawg was finished being built I had pleasant looking checker tell me with a straight face that I owed her $77. Here is a picture of the great beast, minus the accessories that were lost long ago. Only the scarf remains:

So I think we can all agree that I got hoodwinked on this deal….

Outside of that money pit store, the ballpark has great food all over the place. Do any of you want to share your favorite place/thing to eat at AT&T? How about Candlestick? Got any horror stories that can beat my san-dawg-diggity dawg-picture?

So where does Stiner go from here? He was our 43rd round draft choice in the 2011 Amateur Draft that got hit with a 50 game suspension the other day for testing positive for a banned amphetamine. Drafted out of high school in the 43rd round and you’re already banned for 50 games. Ouch. Could be time to go to college instead. I took a look at the 43rd round draft in 2011–there was actually a guy who got a $300,000 signing bonus in that round–Ty Washington, SS, drafted by the Reds. Something tells me they might have had a little leverage on him with that draft spot but I guess they are trying to make sure he signs instead of going to college….

Speaking of the Reds, they just signed Ryan Madson to a 1 year, 8.5 million dollar deal. Not bad scratch for us commoners, but his dumbass agent (Scott Boras) was draggin his feet and fiddling around with a 4 year, 44 million dollar offer with the Phillies a few months back before they finally had it with him and signed Papelbon instead.  Madson is now apparently going the route of Adrian Beltre (sign a 1 year deal with Boston and try to hit it big the next year–which he did with Texas).

Madson is a heck of a pitcher who worked his ass off to get where he is today but I think he didn’t get the best counsel on this. Closers shelf lives can be awfully short, the window for success closes quickly. At 31 years old, you would think he would have parlayed last year’s success into something that could take care of his family for life. Instead his agent negotiated him right out of a deal that could have done just that. I think he’ll have a nice year for the Reds in 2012 and he COULD get the deal he was searching for or at least take one similar to the one he had on the table a couple of months ago.

It’s always nice to see Scott BorASS take a loss like this but I feel badly for Madson who probably could have scored 4 times what he got, at least, if he had just signed quickly with the Phillies….

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Retro Action…..

June 27th, 1984. Kind of a wild affair, Giants were leading 5-0 into the 5th when the Reds scored 6 runs to take the lead. The Giants answered back with 5 in the bottom of the 5th with the help of a Chili Davis pinch hit grand slam. Another game where the Giants had 15 hits. I think that’s 2 or 3 recent Retro games from ’84 where the Giants had 15 hits and I’m not doing that on purpose. We must have had some hitters that year though we were in last place as of this game. The Reds had someone named “Vernon Rapp” managing them. No recollection of him at all…..

Giants won this one 14-9

I think it is too difficult to get elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Everyone says it’s about elite statistics and that a player’s career needs to have sustained longevity. But it’s often just about the strength of the class getting voted on. Barry Larkin made it in on his third try. Last year he got 62% of the vote and he was now considered to have shuffled up near enough to the top to get voted in on the 2012 ballot; which he did. This year’s class wasn’t considered that strong so Larkin became *the guy* to vote for. Funny, his stats never changed….

Morris finished with 53% of the vote in 2011. This year he got 66% of the votes. Next year he’ll get voted in. It’s idiotic that Morris should be on his 13th try to get into the HOF. He was one of if not THE most dominant pitcher in the 80’s (well, let’s say ’82–’92). If dominating an entire decade isn’t enough to get in I don’t know what is.

Ron Santo got voted in–after he passed away.

The Hall is just too exclusive of a club. And it’s about to get a lot more exclusive as the 160 (I’m guessing on the number but I think I’m close) writers who vote are going to keep players out based on personal biases. Does anyone think Barry Bonds is going to get voted in? I don’t. And many MANY of those writers aren’t going to vote for him just because they didn’t like him personally when he played the game. Is that what the Hall is about? The “I Liked You Hall of Fame”? The “You Didn’t Snub Me When I Tried To Interview You Hall of Fame”?

It won’t just be the steroid use that keeps Barry out. I predict that most of the steroid guys get in and Bonds DOESN’T just because he hurt some feelings of the voters at various points in his career. And that’s stupid.

So the Hall won’t have the all time hits leader and the all time home run leader. And they also won’t have (or currently don’t have) a ton of players who deserve to be in there but who can’t voted in because the writers feel the need to exclude players just because they haven’t been on the ballot for enough years. So I ask you, what kind of club is this?

Ron Santo gets elected in. After he died. What message does this send to the Santo family? Your dad’s stats were the same and we couldn’t vote him in when he was alive but now that he’s dead, come on down, Ron!

It’s stupid. They’re going to have his son or a family member get up there and be all emotional about how much this would have meant to dad, etc. It’s all just a big show.

So I like to LQTM when people talk about the Hall of Fame being about “elite baseball stats”– it has nothing to do with stats at all….

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Retro Game of the Day

It’s Monday, April 30th, 1984 and 28,000 turned out to see Fernando Valenzuela pitch. He did not disappoint, he pitched a 4 hit complete game shut out. Dodgers scratched out a run in the 2nd off Laskey and that was enough, they won 1-0. Gene Richards led off for us. I’ve got no recollection of him player for us. I remember him as a Padre.

Watching the Bronco fans go bezerrk-o last night was fun to watch. It made me think of all the great moments that Candlestick Park has seen over the years. Of course, most of those playoff moments happened for the 49ers, not the Giants.

Who could forget The Catch? Chuck and Denny have said they were at the game and even tore away grass tufts as momento’s. Who knows they could have even high fived each other or banged into each other that day while they were stealing City grown and owned grass….. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Of course The Catch was great, but one of the best moments of that day was this dude:

I love that dude……

In 1998 there was the Steve Young Miracle Pass to T.O. to beat Green Bay with 3 seconds left. I have never seen a grown man cry for as long as T.O cried after catching that ball. What a *moment* this was……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzThn8pkpC0&feature=related

The 2002 playoff game against the Giants, the last playoff game played at the ‘Stick until next Saturday, had perhaps the weirdest, wildest ending of any playoff game played there. With the game nearing an end, Garcia hooks up with Tai Streets to complete an improbable comeback. But that was just the beginning. Then the Giants drive down the field and actually manage to set up a game winning field goal try. Well, here is the rest (scroll to about the 8:50 mark of this video)…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xneDY8BJ_M

I still can’t believe Allen got off that good of a throw in that situation. Watching Strahan trudge off the field at the end was priceless…..

Anyway, playoff football is back in my life for the first time since 2002. I really don’t have a feel one way or the other for how Saturday’s game plays out. I’m just excited to watch the game…….

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Retro Game of the Day!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s move on to 1984. It was a pretty dismal year I don’t know how long I’ll spend on this year. We lost 96 games. I usually start off with the Opening Day game but decided to choose the second game of the season played on April 5th, 1984. The day before 52K showed up to watch the loss. Today, 8,460 turned out to watch Krukow v Chuck Rainey. 52K all the way down to 8K is a pretty huge single game drop. The fans must have known what type of year we were in for. Krukow got lit up again. He didn’t make it out of the 2nd inning. If memory serves, he also got lit up in his first start for the Giants in ’83–I don’t think he made it out of the 1st inning that day. Anyway, we lost even though we banged out 15 hits, Trillo and Clark each with 3……

I’ve always felt like the Steroid Era should effect the Hall of Fame in one clear, direct way: the asterisk. Instead of sorting through veiled suspicions and accusations, if a player has HOF-worthy numbers he gets voted in but if he played in the *Era* he gets an asterisk next to his name. Your opinion of whether he used PED’s determines how big that asterisk is to you. There is simply NO WAY to know who used drugs and who didn’t during the steroid era or, really, at any point in the history of the game.

Agreeing on the chronology of the era is the next step. I think many people would point to ’88-’89 as the beginning with Canseco and McGwire as a visible starting point. But an era needs to be encompassing and I don’t think steroids had taken over the league in ’88-’89. Maybe the A’s locker room. But not the league.

If you pair steroid use to power numbers then you might look to 1994 as the start of the Era. No player hit 50 home runs that year but 5 players were on pace to hit 50 before the strike ruined the season: Matt Williams, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas, Albert Belle and Barry Bonds would have been the first players to hit 50 bombs since Big Fat Cecil Fielder did it in 1991. And the only player to hit 50 home runs before Fielder was George Foster in 1977. After baseball re-started themselves there were 15 players who hit 50 bombs or more from 1995 through 2002. You can point to a juiced ball or juiced bodies that was the cause of that type of power explosion. I’m going with *juiced bodies*.

After 2002 you saw major league baseball begin to slowly sludge their way towards a tangible consequence for steroid use– the survey test in 2003, their first testing program in 2004, in 2005 suspensions for failing a test as well as names getting named, and in 2005/06 there were longer suspensions (it jumped from 15 games to 50 games), the Balco scandal and the Mitchell Report.

Of course, we know players have been using steroids since then. We even had the freaking MVP of the National League get busted this year. But in terms of players willfully and without consequence using steroids, it seems that the bulk of that use occurred between 1994 through 2006.

The Dead Ball Era is generally considered to have been from 1900 through 1919 when the Black Sox lost the World Series on purpose and MLB made sweeping changes designed to generate more offense. That’s a 19 year Era.

I’m proposing a 12 year steroid era that runs from 1994-2006. Any player elected to the hall of fame who played the majority of the career during this era gets an asterisk next to his name. As a voter you can choose to vote with/without an asterisk and if the player has enough votes and the majority of those votes have the asterisk then he goes in with the asterisk. Those who visit Cooperstown can be the judge and jury of how that may taint their place in baseball history…….

Thoughts?

Very little in the Giants world to discuss right now so……..

I was surprised to see our record was 27-21 on June 1st, 1983 as I remember that year to be a downer. Turns out 6 games over .500 was the best we’d do that year. Today’s game was a couple of weeks later on June 16th– only 7,879 showed up on this cold, drizzly, foggy (I’m just guessing) Thursday night. Hey, if the fans aren’t going to turn out to see hall of famers like Jenkins and Seaver they certainly aren’t going to show up to see Mike Scott v Bill Laskey (Scott didn’t get good until a couple of years later). Kind of a boring game, we lost 7-2.

I was also surprised to see Milt May’s name as our starting catcher. I have very little recollection of him and yet he played with us for 4 seasons. Catchers are the kind of guys you remember—Sadek, Brenly, Manwaring—guys who don’t do that much in the stat sheet but they are hard to forget. Except Milt May. He barely rings a bell to me…….

After clearing waivers this week, it’s entirely likely that Powell will be headed back to the minors in the A’s system. If you’re the Giants and if you’re Powell, doesn’t it make a little sense to at least look at each other for a song or two? To be clear, I am not a huge *Landon Powell* fan. Outside of his immediate family and friends, I doubt too many people are. But we are the team that is scheduled to have either Eli Whiteside or Chris Stewart backing up Buster Posey. We are not in a position to turn away anyone asking us to dance…….

Powell at least has a little pedigree. He was an outstanding catcher for the University of South Carolina. He was drafted by the A’s in 2004 in the 1st round of the amateur draft. He’s thrown out nearly 40% of runner in his big league career, an excellent number.

He hasn’t really ever been able to hit up here…….

Or down there……

He was ok in double A in 2007 hitting .292 and he hit 15 bombs in 2008 in AAA in 300 at bats.

The last 3 seasons have been underwhelming……….

But Jesus Christ, all of that dominates the stat line careers of Whiteside and Stewart! If you had to pick one of the 3 to back up Posey who would you pick?

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Retro Game of the Day!

It’s June 1, 1983– Wednesday night game. 10K showed up to see Tom Seaver pitch. I gotta tell ya, I’m unimpressed with the turn out for these games against epic, hall of fame pitchers. Hammaker pitched a pearl and The Ripper hit a bomb to lead us to a 4-2 victory for our 4th straight victory. We are 27-21 on June 1st, 1983.

Actually, I’m not gear up for it. A friend of mine is. She wants to put together a Spring Training trip for her husband’s birthday and she called me yesterday asking for tips on where to go, how to do it, etc. I was a little embarrassed to say I’ve never been to ST though I’ve always wanted to go.

Have any of you guys ever been? Highlights? Low lights? Places you would or wouldn’t go?

We’re only about 40 days or so away from P/C’s reporting…….

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Retro Game O’ da Day!

April 22nd, 1983. It was a Friday night game, 6,630 diehards showed up. Man, with Fergie Jenkins on the mound it blows my mind that only 6K showed up for that game. It was the final season of his HOF career. What a dominant beast this guy was back in the day. The Cubs handled us easily 7-2. Laskey stood little chance against Jenkins and he was relieved by the flailing trifecta of Mike CHris, Renie Martin and Mark Calvert.

Well, there still isn’t much. Aubry Huff says he’s *ripped* and is ready to go for 2012. Personally, if he’s *peaking* I would prefer to hear about that in late March, not January 3rd. But whatever, I guess this is a good thing–Still, I might like to see a before and after picture— this isn’t some “Pablo-self-reclamation” project. If true, and Huff pissed away last year by personal neglect of his body, then we’re basically paying him 22 million for this upcoming single season. And I also don’t really buy that this is all about re-committing pilates back into your life. That just sounds too simple, we’re talking about an hour a day three times a week. Start doing that again and you’re back in black? Color me skeptical…….

The A’s signed Coco Crisp, basically to avoid penalties for not staying AT LEAST at a 40 million payroll budget floor. Boy, nothing says “We’re trying to win” like a front office going all out to narrowly avoid falling on the wrong side of the payroll budget floor. Seriously though, I do understand Beane’s approach to all of this and this *white flag* is their final attempt to move the team out of Oakland…..

Coco’s deal include’s $250,000 for his troubles WHEN he is traded…….

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Retro Action

It’s Sunday, April 17th 1983 and the Reds are in town. Someone named “Mark Calvert” is starting for us. It did not go well. : 0 innings pitched and 4 runs before Renie Martin came in to stop the bleeding. Renie couldn’t get out of the first inning either (he did get 2 outs) so Mike Chris (who?) was called on to finally finish off the Reds in the first inning but not before they scored 9(!). Frank Pastore went into cruise control and we lost 12-3 in front of 37,094 fans who were all bummed they didn’t find a better way to spend their Sunday afternoon……

Despite going 5 for 5 with my bowl game picks yesterday I was nearly inconsolable at the end of the night. David Shaw’s decision to play for the FG had me shaking my head violently sideways in non-knowing-dude-head-nod-disapproval. The Stanford D was completely done, every person watching the game could see that. There was NO WAY Shaw should have risked going to overtime. And yet he did. Luck was doing WHATEVER he wanted to do to that defense. After Ok St scored to tie it at 38 I literally could have cared less, there was plenty of time for Luck to win the game for Stanford. Of course, he started to do just that by easily marching them down the field. And then with 52 seconds left and 3 time outs it….all….just….stopped……

You don’t give the ball to a freshman kicker in that situation unless it is literally going to be a straight ahead chip shot—like the one the Ok St kicker got to end the game.

I trust Andrew Luck…..’

I do not trust college kickers, especially a freshman college kicker who has already missed a similar-distanced field goal earlier in the game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Besides, think about it: Luck came back to Stanford for 2 things: 1) win a National Championship and 2) win the Heisman. He accomplished neither. The last thing left to make it *worth it* would be to win the Fiesta Bowl in front of a national audience. And I do mean WIN IT. Not kinda win it or be a *part* of the win by setting it up for a freshman kicker. I’m talking about finishing off a 2 minute drive with a touchdown pass that wins the game and puts an epic exclamation point on his storied hall of fame career.

David Shaw SHOULD have known what to do in that situation. He HAD TO HAVE known how this was SUPPOSED to end, right?  But there he was, ordering the clock down to 3 seconds and the ball into the middle of the field for his freshman kicker to shank it. And I’ll say it again, Andrew Luck HAS to be the one to win that game last night. Not the fucking freshman kicker.

So when they asked Luck if coming back to Stanford was worth it and he sheepishly says what he has to say, I know what the real answer was: No, it was not worth it. I’m disgusted with David Shaw this morning…….

Yesterday just didn’t feel right without a full day of college football insanity. I’ve actually watched a lot of the bowl games. I prefer more games, the more the better. There is almost always a story line to get into (either that or a *betting line* 🙂 ).  And for some players it’s their last chance before the NFL combine to make an impression on the scouts. I haven’t watched a game yet this year where it felt like the players were just sleep walking through it……

The Washington/Baylor game was just epic. I have never seen worse defense than by Washington on the last few drives of their game. Every run play went for a long touchdown. That was the first game I have gotten to see Griffin play in and I must say, I am impressed with that guy. He just flicks his wrist and the ball comes out like it’s shot out of a cannon—and every single throw is right on target. Then you see him elude the rush and take off running and you say, “how can this guy be stopped?”

I’m a huge Andrew Luck fan but I don’t see how he gets drafted before Griffin (though I know he will). What exactly does Luck do that is BETTER than what Griffin does? From the single game I saw, the answer is nothing…….

The most annoying thing about the Wash/Baylor game was the announcing. The only thing they would talk about was Griffin. “RG3, RG3, RG3”. In the 2nd Q I timed it and they didn’t go more than 15 seconds without referencing him or having a camera on him. The Washington QB got almost no mention whatsoever. In the 2nd half they FINALLY started talking about him a little as he was on his way to a 7 td (pass and rush) performance.

Also, I’d like to know why we can’t just call him *Griffin*? What’s all this “Robert Griffin the Third” business. He should have his name written in calligraphy on the back of his jersey.  It’s like he’s King of the World, or something. What, your dad and his dad were so critical to the course of history that we need to drop a *3* on you every time we say your name just to be sure about who we’re talking about? Get over yourself, dude………

Today’s Plays:

under in the Penn St game (57)

South Carolina -2.5

Florida -2 (don’t really like this game that much)

Oregon -6.5

The Cardinal +3.5

And tomorrow Michigan -3 to beat an overrated V-tech team……….

WordPress.com sent me a stats breakdown for 2011. It was actually pretty stupid, it could have been much more informative. It included things like “London Olympic Stadium holds 80,000 people. This blog was viewed about 320,000 times in 2011. If it were competing at London Olympic Stadium, it would take about 4 sold-out events for that many people to see it.” Thanks for that complex statistical breakdown and talking to me like I’m a fifth grader. They make a point to tell me that they don’t count my views which I found amusing for some reason…..

The only thing I was actually interested in was how The Flap’s numbers looked compared to other similar blogs but when I emailed them about that they said they have those numbers but don’t release them to the blog owners. I asked them why not and the person emailing me back said he didn’t know why. Thanks, idiot.

The Flap was off about 30% from 2010. I attribute that mostly to not making the playoffs. If you recall in 2010 the blog party went on long after 11/1.

They listed off the top 6 bloggers. I was surprised to see that a number of you had comments in the multiple thousands. As dumb as this *Yearly Report* was, it did make me appreciate how committed the core group is to the blog and to discussing our team. Loo said a while back that it’s impossible to talk about the Giants incessantly but I think he was wrong. It’s the one thing that can hold my interest 24/7 /365.

Here’s a list off the top of my head of the bloggers who make up The Flap. If I left you out I’m sorry and the list isn’t in any particular order after the top 6 (as reported by wordpress.com):

Twin

Chuck

DelMar Dennis

Blade

Pawlie

Nipper

Zumie

Snarkk

Bozo

PaulinAsia

TedSpe

Ewisco

San Diggity Dawg

WillieD

James

Loo

Giant Head

Dirt

Kevin

Stix

MacDog

Raymond

Eddaker

EdGdsinExile

Big Sarge

Alley Kat

NoTalent

Billy

Cristen

St.

At the end of the year, we saw CHIPOWER come back which was great. Phil Fan and Berger made a few appearances. Ferrethead has been long gone for a while now, I hope she’s doing ok.

I was surprised to see Nipper and Del Mar Dennis cracking the top 6 of Most Comments, but they did. And it reminded me that while I don’t always appreciate what people post here I do appreciate the time each of them took to visit the blog and to leave a comment.

So today I want to salute Flap Nation. World Series or Bust in 2012……..

Ok, we are back on track, back in the saddle, back in black, whatever you want to call it. I’ve been patiently waiting for some big Giants news to come out and it finally happened: Boof Bonser has signed a minor league deal with the team! This coming on the heels of the El Presidente re-sign deal and we have now REALLY got it rollin’ here in December……

One of old friends, *Chi Power* emerged from his self imposed exile and it was great to see him posting again. He brought up a topic that isn’t new here (signing Lincecum) but noted the rumor of the Giants having offered Timmy an extension of 4yrs/80 mil last Summer. Apparently Tim’s reps shot that down and we’ve already heard about his desire to secure an 8 year deal. Good luck with that…….

It’s assumed that Timmy will go to arbitration this year but he could still work something out with Giants management. Maybe another 2 year deal. Personally, I think that a 4 yr/80 million dollar offer makes sense for both sides. For the player it offers lifetime security in case of injury. It would offer a type of security for the team, too. For starters, it locks up your ace-hole for the next 4 baseball seasons. That’s huge and 20 million a year is just what those guys make a year. Minimum. I wouldn’t be worried about a *Zito Regression* by giving him a deal like that. In fact, he would only be 30 at the start of the season in the final year of that deal. And you can’t worry about a player getting injured when they’re still pitching in their 20’s. Plus, 4 years isn’t really a *long term deal* like the one Zito signed. It’s long and probably feels longer because Sabean doesn’t seem to do more than a 2-year deal these days. But it’s not some *lifetime deal*. And the fact is, if Sabean keeps insisting on building a team around his pitching, he’s going to need all the stud pitchers he can get. After trading away Wheeler, as we know, there isn’t much left in the pitching prospect tank.

That should worry Sabean big time and he’s going to need Timmy locking down the peak of the pitching staff while he replenishes the minor league system with pitching rich talent through the draft. As a side note, I’ve always felt that the Giants should be drafting HITTERS instead of pitchers because it’s almost impossible to get a good free agent hitter to come here because of our park. If you draft them, and they sign, they HAVE to play for you. Regardless, Sabes isn’t doing it that way and it’s never really bothered me because the flip side is BUYING your pitchers through free agency instead of the draft and I’m just not really down with that. Pitchers have significantly more constant and isolated wear and tear on a very specific area of the body (arm/shoulder) by the time they hit free agency than a hitter who has more of a general wear and tear dispersed throughout their body. To me, it’s more likely that the player who has concentrated and consistent wear and tear on a single body part is more likely to get injured than a player who disperses the wear and tear throughout the body. But as a general philosophy it would seem to reason that if you would have no problem enticing a FA pitcher to sign with you that you build your team by drafting hitters and signing pitchers. Oh, well, got on a tangent there, sorry……

The other main reason I would sign Lincecum to a 4 year deal is because it would allow us to……..wait for it……..trade him. TRADE HIM????? Yes, that’s what I said. Look, the Giants are likely going to stay competitive over the next 4 years. But what if they don’t? Or what if Sabean DOESN’T re-stock the minor league pitching system? If we are 10 games out of it in July of 2014 wouldn’t it be nice to know that Sabes could trade Timmy for 4 or 5 stud blue chippers. And if he’s still got another year on his deal it would make him look much more attractive to a trade partner. It would be very difficult to trade him for a plentiful bounty if he’s only going to be a rental for the receiving team. And that’s what he’s going to be if we just go year to year with him before he reaches free agency……

The bottom line is, almost every elite team has an ace making 20+  million a year. We got burned on the Zito deal but a lot of teams get burned with big free agent signings. The key is to not put ourselves in a position like that again. And you’re just not risking that if you sign a 27 year old player to a 4 year deal. We’re likely always going to be paying a pitcher who makes 20+ million a season. If we aren’t, we likely aren’t competitive anymore. I would much rather pay that type of scratch to a player who I know and love than some free agent dude who’s given his best years to the back of his baseball card…… Now, if Sabean gives Timmy a full no trade clause in a 4 year deal I’ll be pissed. But if we get a pitcher in the prime of his career who I can trade for many prospects if I decide to at some point during the deal (excluding the final year)? Sign me up……. ______________________________________________________________________________

Retro Game of the Day It’s been about a week since we did a RGOTD and I’ve lost my interest in 1982. Let’s move on to 1983–another below average year, we finished in 5th place with 79 wins. But today it’s Opening Day and there’s no other day of the year that brims with more positivity and confidence. Kruk and Kuip joined the team in ’83. Krukow pitched the opener and did not look like an ace. He didn’t make it out of the 2nd inning. We lost this barn burner 16-13…….

This isn’t a very Christmasy post, but it’s better than the one I had planned on writing. No polls, none of that stuff. Let me be clear about something: When I have banned someone, it wasn’t because I’m was on some power trip. I did it to protect the integrity of the blog. Having a different opinion is one thing, but when you cross the line and become a *sh!t disturber* there is no place for you at The Flap (or in The Nation 🙂 )

I think I do a pretty good job of monitoring this place….

I’m not on a power trip…..

And I’m not banning anyone today. Look, the sh!t disturbers can get under my skin the same way they get under yours. I WILL do what Twin taught me to do: If I see a post that I think is a designed sh!t disturbing post from a known sh!t disturber, I will simply edit the message to something that makes you look stupid. So go ahead and take your time crafting the perfect sh!t disturbing message—I will ruin it with something clever of my own…..

Having different opinions is fine. Arguing with someone is fine. Even putting someone down or using curse words directed at someone, it’s ok if it’s in moderation……

But saying the same goddamn thing every goddamn day and getting the same goddamn reaction from your fellow bloggers, is something I won’t tolerate here at The Flap from today until I shut this bad boy down some time next Winter. Post 1000 will be almost cathartic for me, I think……

I hope you guys have a good day. Find something or someone to appreciate. I’ve been up pretty much all night keeping the dream alive. I am fairly certain this is the last Christmas I get with my little girl believing in Santa. She already figured out the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy earlier this year, mostly due to my carelessness, and she has been sketching hard on Santa. Her plan was to stay up all night and see if he did, in fact, come down the chimney. I did a lot of work to keep the legacy of the jolly fellow in tact. I think he got more sleep than I did 🙂 But she still believes, at least for today, so my work here is done. And at the end of THIS day, that is the only thing that matters to me and the best present I could get. Yes, shockingly, even better than The Forecaster. 🙂

My 2012 Baseball Forecaster showed up at my door yesterday–it’s the one Christmas present I look forward to each year. You can certainly find a lot of the information on the internet for free–fangraph’s is one site, you can find that in my link column. But there’s something I like about having it all right in front of me, every sabermetric number you could ever want for every single player in the league last year. They also do an outstanding job of translating the numbers as some of it is hard to understand. I won’t bore you with the numbers, but the Forcaster does give a blurb for each player and I thought I’d share some of the more interesting ones. They aren’t always kind and sometimes are rather funny. These blurbs may seem incomplete, they leave the numbers crunching to you and couldn’t fit all that into a little blurb anyway.  They also don’t factor in things like medication imbalances (Torres) or bad attitudes (Pagan) and they went to press a couple of months ago I think so they don’t mention any trade outcomes or FA destinations. Some of players I’m listing off are fairly obvious, I just thought you’d like to see what they say about our most interesting SF giants—just for shits and giggles.

They don’t nail every player’s upcoming season but they often do and I wouldn’t be able to compete in fantasy baseball without the direction given to me by the ‘Forecaster…….

Eli Whiteside– (obviously Whiteside won’t ever play on anyone’s fantasy team but I figured there would be some here who would be interested in his *blurb*): “Blame Posey for having to subject us to this debacle. Back up catcher saw more playing time than expected and showed conclusively his bat is unworthy of anything close to regular at bats. Lacking power, his extreme FB% (flyball %) merely resulted in a ton of routine outs. Can be safely ignored.”

Chris Stewart: 5th mlb team in 5 seasons. “This caddy just doesn’t have the pop to offer any any value with the bat. Even if insanely low h% normalizes at all , we’re still talking spitting distance of Mendoza line. Meanwhile, RC/G R$ shows he’s equally pestilent in any game format.”

Angel Pagan: “Another year, another 30 sb’s, but be careful. Spd decline, especially in 2nd half, suggests those days could be numbered even if aberrant h% normalizes. Poor health says we can’t bank on 500 at bats anymore. Some will look at 30 sb’s as his baseline. You’ll heed warnings and look for premium wheels elsewhere. ”

Andres Torres: “Early season achilles strain cost him a full month. Hit more fly balls merely producing more outs as 2010 power outburst was unsustainable and Xba plummeted accordingly. When a career year comes at after age 30 the odds of a comparable follow up year are almost nil.”

Ryan Vogelsong: “After an absence of 4 full major league seasons, this was as unlikely a return to mlb as we may ever see.  xERA says it wasn’t quite as good as it looked. Age and utter lack of support for this level of success says to not bank on a repeat.”

Mad Bum: “Hard to find a discouraging trend here. Gains in DOM and CMD, particularly exciting. Closed with a flourish in 2H in part by minimizing struggles with RHB. Last year, we said “sign us up.” This year we say “Renew our membership.”

Brian Wilson: “Fear the beard? Should have feared the regression instead. ERA corrected to a level more consistent with his xERA history. Injuries likely drove the CMD erosion. But if elbow is sound, he should remain in upper echelon of closers.”

Brandon Belt: In between frequent rides on the SF/Fresno shuttle, he continued to flash appealing skills. MLB contact% of 70% isn’t good enough but mle’s say he can do better. It may take a while for him to hit .300 but power stroke Px 154 minors/125 majors says power stroke may be here now. Up: 30 hr’s”

Aaron Rowand: “Eye and Px erosion have sent him into a downward spiral. Full time days are long gone. A fine target in leagues that don’t have use for BA, HR’s, RBI’s, or sb’s….”

Panda: Fractured hamate bone zapped power in 1H but boy did it return in 2H. That 2010 power outage looks like a blimp now. I mean blip. .625 road slugging % gives us tease of his upside and his power wasn’t affected by ATT before ’11. With health, fitness and a few more fly balls his upside is .330/35/110″

Melky Cabrera: “Rode expanded PT and career at bats to *break out* season. But most skills were just a slight improvement on 2009. Prorate his ’09 stats to 658 at bats at see for yourself. BA spike was driven by hit rate and will regress. SB spike driven by more opps–prime regression candidate.”

Matt Cain: “Exemplary DOM/DIS splits. Even added more ground balls to an already ultra stable skill set. For 3 years he’s been riding a bit of a hit-rate hot streak, but nonetheless, he remains a very solid investment. ”

Sergio Romo: “skills for the ages. 200+ BPV for 5 of 6 months, along with a 32/1 so/bb over his last 32 innings. slider remains untouchable and he throws it 54% of the time now. late season elbow inflammation bears watching. But if health/opportunity align….up: 30 saves”

Nate Schierholtz: “Pro: mlb career highs in both hr’s and sb’s. Con: they were both in single digits. 1h sb *binge* was an aberration but that small sample 2h px spike, which xPx says could have been even greater, is enough to hold our attention for a little longer. But this is your last chance Nate. UP: 20 hr’s”

Huff: In his last 4 seasons he’s channeled his inner Saberhagen with virtually carbon copy skills in even and odd years. Can he continue the pattern? With plate skills fairly stable, stat output is at the whim of h% and hr/f. He’s 35 and if his 2H at bats become the norm, he may not have a chance to rebound. Bid cautiously.”

Dirrrrty Sanchez: “How bad was it? He walked 4 or more batters in almost half his starts, and only went one start without issuing a walk. But until a rough patch in June (before hitting DL) he was maintaining a 2.0 CMD. If he’s healthy, treat his 2011 as his downside and bid accordingly. ”

There might be others I could have hit, but I’ve got other stuff to go do now. Have a good Christmas eve…….

A side note: Today was the 600th post here at The New Flap. When I hit 1000 I’m walking away…….

Yesterday’s RGOTD got me thinking about this one. Jose Barrios got a start in his third day in the big leagues after playing in the minors for nearly 7 years. He was gone 2 weeks later. Last year’s roster had an awful lot of players on it who might never play in the major leagues again. Zumie threw this question out there the other day. Taking a look at the roster from 2011, how many players do you think will never see The Show again? All of these guys played in at least one game last year.

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Retro Time……………..

It’s June 8th, 1982 and Nolan Ryan is pitching for the Astros. Was Nolan Ryan a juicer? Go look at his stats. He was fiddling around in the 190-200 strike out range from ’83 tthrough ’86. Then all of a sudden he goes 270—228 and finally 301(!) in 1989 (at age 42), the same year that MANY A’s juiced themselves silly. That Astros LU looked a little less than imposing, didn’t it? Hayyymaker struck out 1 in nearly 7 full…..

Dark morning. Haiku morning. Maybe later……

It’s tweets like these that keep this blog quiet:

“The Giants aren’t looking for a free agent to replace Jonathan Sanchez, but are interested in adding pitchers who are willing to accept minor league contracts, tweetsHenry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle.”

Lost amidst the “Melky Hysteria” is the slowly developing but definitely growing “Zito Perturbation”. If we were living in Indonesia, it’d be like if the Tsunami Sirens have gone off. You don’t know why you’re running but you’re running. Fast. Cause it’s coming.

I loved the bloggers (last year) who would tell me, “Aw, you’re being to hard on Zito! He’s a great #5! You’d see that if you weren’t blinded by the money he makes! Forget the contract! Idiot!”. Then he checked in with a 5.87 ERA for the year. The Giants tried to hide him twice on the DL and I actually thought that was a reasonable plan given their options with him. But now he’s back. He is the #5 until the tsunami finally hits the shore.

I’ve refrained from looking at the available free agent pitcher list for the upcoming season. It must be frightening.

“Well-rrendous”. “Supp-marish”…..

And waiting for the cast offs from Spring Training doesn’t seem like a prudent thing to do– with almost every other team lean on pitching I can’t imagine too many rejects that aren’t at least as bad as Zito hitting the waiving wire.

Of course there’s always Eric Surkamp if a horrendous bb/SO ratio strikes your fancy…..

And we haven’t even gotten to the worry warts who predict misery and failure for Ryan Vogelsong (not me, I think he’ll have a fine year)….

But the Zito Implosion is coming. Some would argue it’s already happening, just on another level undetectable by the human ear or eye. And when it does hit, I am not seeing anything that can fill the vast void left in it’s wake.

4 man rotation anyone????????

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Retro…

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Action………..

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Baby>>>>

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It’s Sunday, APril 25th, 1982. The Dodgers are throwing the Rookie of the Year at us and we are countering with Rich Gale. I actually always liked Gale, can’t remember why. He only pitched for us one year and he wasn’t very good. He was a big son of a be-atch though, and today that would be enough as we took the Doidgers 6-3 behind a monster 8th inning (5 runs scored) powered by a Hacman grand salami. I have nary a clue who Jose Barrios is or how he made the starting line up. “Enrico Palazzo”, anyone?

Barrios was drafted in ’75 (amateur draft) and didn’t make it to the big club until April 23rd, 1982. Today he got a start and did nothing. His last game in the big leagues would be a couple of weeks later on May 7th. Sometimes, you only get one shot up here………