A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Yesterday was a hell of a day for the W’s, wasn’t it? Ellis gets caught up in an ugly sexual harassment suit and Curry goes down with a bad ankle injury. They’re calling that a sprain but I’m telling you, he’s gone a while. Luckily the team has Charles Jenkins and Ish Freaking Smith? I’ve never heard of *Ish Smith*, I had to look him up. His scouting report finished with this: “Best attribute? Guys like playing with him.” Wow, that’s some high praise. I’m sure that will translate well into success in the NBA……The Warriors are f**ked………

I’ve tried to take the time to pick the perfect *worst* memory I’ve got about baseball for Twin’s link to the right. It just never came to me. *My* worst baseball memory was probably being 12 years old and losing the PA City Championships after we only lost a single game in the regular season and everyone had expected us to walk to a City trophy. But my worst Giants memory? Hey, I can take a loss with the best of them. I can bellow out the cuss words. I shake my head violently and have been known to kick a thing or two (non-living of course). And I feel the sting of a loss for probably a full day afterwards. But then I let it go. I remember all the games that the guys have listed off in the link as *worst memory* but I just don’t have any feelings connected to them. It could be the great power of *denial*. It could also be that the World Series victory allowed me to let go of so much of the pain from past failures. I don’t know.

I still feel the pain of past 49er losses. The playoff game vs the Redskins in Jan of ’84 still makes my blood boil. Two phantom calls erased one of the great comebacks in playoff sports history. The Roger Craig fumble in the 1990 NFC Championship game vs the Giants has me doing a slow burn to this day. I see Roger Craig all the time around town, he struts around with a big smile and everyone wants to talk to him. Not me. I’ll never forgive him for that fumble…….

There are so many more games played than football games. A football game is magnified because there’s such a big build up to the game and so much time afterwards to lament the outcome (or celebrate it). Baseball games can tend to string together sometimes. And as crushing as a defeat feels in the moment, there’s always a new game with a new, more positive memory to take it’s place.

I think that’s why I don’t have a memory for Twin’s thread………

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Retro Game ‘o the Day………..

I’m skipping the rest of 1981. The strike year was dumb and isn’t worth our time. It’s opening day, April 13th, 1982. Alan Fowlkes is pitching for us against John Montefusco. That doesn’t seem right, does it? We traded the Count for Doyle Alexander, actually a decent trade if you just look at the single year Alexander pitched for us: 11-7, 2.89 ERA in the strike year. We turned around and flipped him to the Yankees for Andy McGaffigan. Whoops. He was not very good for us. Was it just me, or did the Giants make some spectacularly horrible trades in the early 80’s? Anyway, it was Fowlkes vs The Count today. We won 3-2. Minton relieved Fowlkes and went 3 innings for the save. Those were the days when a save was an earned save. I gotta admit, I like the first 6 spots of our line up……..

I would like to just talk about the Niners game but I realize this is a Giants baseball blog and I can’t talk about football every day. Harbaugh’s comment last night that “Alex was on the money all night” was a joke. He was horribly inaccurate in the first half. But his first touchdown drive was magnificent. I’m not sure if I could get behind his “Pro Bowl” nomination given to him by Harbaugh, but he’s been very, very good. I think the defense looked a little better than it actually is teeing off on a 1-legged QB all game. But I thought the offense didn’t get ENOUGH credit for how it performed against one of the best defenses in either league. All in all, a signature win in this epic re-birth of a season……

Anyway, enough about football. Like the rest of you, I gnashed my teeth at the news that Whiteside is being brought back, according to Bobby Evans, to “compete with Chris Stewart for the back up catcher job”. After seeing how pathetic that 2-headed monster was last year I can’t believe the team would risk it happening all over again. I truly believe they are going to bring up Hector once he sharpens his tools a bit more down in AAA. They can’t have an automatic out every time the C position comes up in the LU (if Buster is at 1B or if he gets hurt again). I would be ok with Stewart backing up Posey at least for the first 6-8 weeks of the season before he just can’t do it anymore—then Hector comes up. Seriously, just how bad can Hector BE defensively? If he’s that bad then there’s almost nothing he could do offensively to make up for his weaknesses. I’m going to hold out hope that he got to this point in his career by being able to at least be passable defensively as a catcher. At least until we see otherwise.

It HAS to be Stewart, right? Is it possible that Whitey could actually beat him out? How? For starters, Stewart is better offensively. It’s not by much, they’re both awful, but he’s better, at least looking at last year’s *production*.

batting average: .204 > .197

OPS: .592 > .574

OBP: .283 > .264

strikeouts: Stewart struck out once every 9 at bats, Whitey an astounding once in ever 3.6 at bats

Stewart can bunt better than Whitey (in fact, this is a strength he can bring to the team, it’s not like he’s just BARELY better than Eli at bunting– he’s one of the best bunters on the team).

Stewart has a better arm than El Presidente. Again, it’s just not a little better, he’s got one of the best arms in the league. This is an actual strength he brings to the team, not just “better than Whitey”.

Stewart can actually catch balls thrown to him by pitchers. I don’t know if they keep stats on this but Whiteside dropped easy to catch balls ALL THE TIME! Many of them would have been called strikes had he caught them. This is a basic skill that any catcher, even in little league, HAS to have. It’s inconceivable to me that a major league catcher could have trouble catching a ball throw to him that wasn’t a knuckleball. And yet there Whiteside was, dropping fastballs in the strike zone with great regularity……..

So Whitey doesn’t win a single category above. And now we’re supposed to believe there’s going to be an actual competition? What a joke. The back up catcher job IS an important one. It’s probably MORE important on a team with an excellent starting catcher because of the huge drop off you suffer if that guy goes down. It makes me sick to think that Sabean and Bochy can actually envision a scenario where Whiteside is getting regular at bats next season………

I am pretty excited about tonight’s Monday night game. I think I took it for granted during the Niners heyday when they were on Monday night so often. There’s just something about night football–the jersey’s are brighter, every play seems THAT important– pizza and Monday Night Football, bring it on.

I’m fairly pessimistic about the Niner’s chances of securing the #2 seed. Beating Pittsburg will be hard enough, then we’ve got 2 tough divisional games on the road. Seattle and the Rams are playing much better. In fact, I watched the Rams game yesterday and that team isn’t quitting a lick despite being out of the playoff picture. Meanwhile, the Saints play their remaining two games at home. We probably have to win all 3 games to keep the #2 seed. Unlikely…….

I’m tepid on the Amundson for Rush trade–mostly I just liked Amundson, it’s nothing against Rush. But RUsh seems to fit the player that Coach is looking for and I’ll back him until he proves he’s just as bad as all the other W coaches.

Retro Action>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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1981 is upon us-The Strike Year. Another bad season for the Giants and a black eye year for baseball. Here’s a rare high point for the team. It’s June 2nd, 1981 and the Reds are in town. Frank Robinson was at the helm and we destroyed a good Reds team 15-7. Soon-to-be Giant Mike LaCoss started for the Reds and got hammered, as did those who succeeded him. I don’t recall Cabell or Jerry Martin playing for us, but they did in 1981 and today they combined to go 5-10 with 5 runs scored and 6 RBI’s. Whitson went 5 innings for the win, Holland pitched the final 4 for a save that you just wouldn’t see these days…….

The Tebow Phenomenon is interesting to watch each week. Rarely has one player inspired so much debate and interest. I think it’s great for the sport to have so much discussion, however misguided, about one man. I’m not as interested in the actual discussions as I am in WHY Tebow has become such a talked about topic.

Is he a good quarterback? That’s a terribly simplistic question to ask. I suppose you could look at his passer rating. He’s ranked 14th in the league in the traditional passer rating at 83.9. ESPN has a new passer rating this year that’s attempting to compete with the established rating. Personally, I think it’s a gimmick. It’s designed for simple people since 158.3 is a cloogy-looking number. ESPN just goes with a 0-100 scoring system. They factor in more stats to their formula than the traditional rating but the truth is, neither number tells the whole story about the performance of a quarterback. But comparing the two stats is a different discussion for another time. ESPN says that Tebow’s QB performance in the first 3 quarters is a 15. That’s horrendous. In the 4th quarter it’s 94. That’s outstanding.

And that differential is one reason why Tebow is such fodder for blogs and talk shows. How can you play the same position and yet perform between a 15 and a 94 in the same game? Is he horrible or is he outstanding? He doesn’t ever seem to play in between.

Most discussions about him get heated because religious people like to start yapping about his/their faith and that his performance is somehow guided by God. I think that’s funny. What’s God busy doing in the first 3 quarters? Is he stuck in traffic? Cause he sure ain’t helping Tebow out. Any time you get religious nuts entering the discussion by explaining answers with “God stepped in and did  *X*” you are going to see things get heated since most sane people understand how idiotic that sounds.

The reason that Tebow is getting so discussed this year is because of two things: 1) frequency and 2) intensity. The sheer number of *football experts* who went out of their way at the beginning of  the year to declare what an awful QB Tebow is have been spending the last 6-8 weeks trying to explain how it is that such an awful QB is able to win so consistently in the NFL week after week. But the experts were so brutal with their criticism of him and they repeated it with such frequency, that you now have a whole bunch of guys who have to try to explain what’s going on here. Otherwise, they look like idiots. But so far, I haven’t heard a credible explanation from any of them that explains how they could have been so wrong–or even if they are wrong at all…

And that’s the reason that Tebow is such an interesting topic. There is nothing that can explain this. Most people like the world to make sense. They like to be able to point to A or B as a reason that C exists. And in Tebow’s case there just isn’t an explanation except that laughable one about *God taking over in the 4th quarter*.

What most people are missing is that Tebow isn’t winning games any more than Alex Smith is winning games. Teams win and lose games. Quarterbacks don’t win or lose games all by themselves. Last week, in the 4th quarter, supposedly *Tebow Time* it was 3rd and 10 with about a minute to go. Tebow drops back, scurries around, ultimately throwing an incomplete pass at the referee. On 4th down, he rambled around, finally running out of bounds gaining no yards. The Denver kicker came in and kicked a 59 yard field goal. So I don’t want to hear about how brilliant Tebow is. He’s just a man. If anyone deserves credit for all these Bronco wins it’s their defense. They’re outstanding……

Tebow has one thing that separates him from normal qb’s and it’s the same thing that Joe Montana had: he’s the coolest, calmest cat on the field at the most critical time of the game. That contributes to his ability to execute plays. You could argue that it’s because of his faith that he’s able to be so calm and collected and that’s actually something that makes perfect sense…..

And I will be watching the Bronco game today because, just like everyone else, I’m fascinated with this story. To me, it’s the same reason I watch Yankee games. I don’t root for or against them, I’m intrigued by the drama that unfolds after the games end. And the outcome of today’s game will absolutely fuel more Tebow debates on blogs and sports talk shows everywhere. If the Pats destroy the Bronco’s and Tebow checks in with his usual 15 passer rating (for the 1st 3 quarters) everyone will say “See! I’m right! Tebow sucks!”. But if the team pulls out another late win (notice I said *team*)  we get to listen to another week of everyone back-tracking and reaching for answers to explain not just how Tebow could be doing this but how they could have been so wrong with their original criticism of the man.

I hope the Bronco’s pull out a win today. To me, I’d rather see the experts stammer and stutter their way through another week of *explaining* than see them nodding their collective head with an annoying  “I told you so.” –that’s worse than having to listen to the Christians tell us it’s because God swooped down dramatically from above and magically guided the Bronco’s to a win……..

Anyway, Retro Time………

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Let’s steamroll to the end of 1980. It’s September 30th and the Dodgers beat us 6-3. Minton and Lavelle combined to butcher the 9th and 10th innings. A young Fernando Valenzuela pitched 2 scoreless (4’s) for the win in relief. Someone named Tom Griffin was our starting pitcher. He combined for 29 starts over a 3 year period and yet I still have no recollection of him…….

The article in The Merc about Torre squashing a potential rule change for catchers had me doing a slow burn. His comments were at best dismissive and at worst condescending. When asked about Bochy’s arguments for a rule change (and according to the article he called Torre several times to discuss it last Summer) he said, “Well, listen, I knew it was more emotional than anything else…..Being a catcher for a lot of years, I knew what the consequences were.”

I wasn’t there but the “Well, listen” start to his sentence is the first thing that pissed me off. People that say this usually have their head cocked a little sideways and slightly forward, they might have a trace of a smile on their face like they know more than you do and there’s often a dramatic, slight pause before they bestow to the listener the great honor of hearing their pompous rhetoric—they’re about to educate you on something–*tell you what time it is*, so to speak.

He then proceeds to use the word “emotional” to describe Bochy’s intentions, despite the fact that Bochy called him “several times over the Summer” not immediately after the incident occurred when you would expect *emotions* to be at their highest and most influential. Degrading someone’s argument as “emotional” completely invalidates any rational foundation it might have.

He then ends the sentence by pointing to his great and storied career of “being a catcher” and of knowing “the consequences”. Well, dumbass, Bochy was a catcher, too. And what *consequences* is Torre referring to? That you can suffer horrendous, career ending,  physical injuries to all parts of your body, including your brain, by standing in a motionless sometimes blind position while you wait for a human missile to take flight and ultimate aim at your defenseless body without any intention of touching the plate whatsoever?

I am more convinced than I’ve ever been that there needs to be a rule protecting catchers at home plate. You aren’t allowed to blast your body full speed into a player at first, second or 3rd base in an attempt to dislodge the ball from an infielder’s glove. Why home plate? Because that’s the way it’s always been? Bullshit. Bochy noted that “these players are getting bigger, stronger and faster.” And what about the facts we now know about the brain and impact? Concussions are being taking more seriously than ever before–the NFL is considering having a freaking neurologist on the sidelines of all games. So either Torre is either too uneducated to know what *the consequences* actually are or he’s been hit in the head so many times he doesn’t even understand what the hell is going on anymore. Which one of those guys do you wanna be, Joe?

And yet Torre is so filled with hubris that he can’t even recommend that the Rules Committee take up the matter? What an ass. He ended his comments by saying, “Well continue to listen….We’ll listen to anything that makes sense.”

That’s just more jibber jabber language designed to demean the intentions of Bochy. The fact is, there needs to be something that protects catchers at the plate from these type of violent collisions.

His decision to not even send this to a committee to discuss it further is reckless, ignorant and short sighted…..

My idea: there are a ton of rules in baseball that have to do with “in the judgment of the umpire*. I think there should be a rule that *in the judgment of the umpire, if the runner makes no attempt to tag home plate he is automatically called out.” This would address the runners who turn themselves into human missiles who obviously have no intent of trying to tag home plate but rather are trying to dislodge the ball from the catchers glove by essentially running him over and hoping for the best (or *worst* which often includes a concussion or some other type of injury). Conversely, the catcher would no longer be allowed to physically seal off the plate. If he sealed off more than 50% of the plate, the runner would be called safe automatically……

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Reeeeeetro Game of the Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s August 14th, 1980 and the Giants are playing the Braves. 5,448 showed up to watch Al Hargesheimer take on Larry McWilliams. Ok, so it wasn’t the most exciting pitching match up. For some reason, I always loved Al Hargesheimer. It was probably his name. He only won 5 games in his career, and this was one of them. Moonman pitched 2.2 innings for the save and we won 5-1. Jim Wohlford is now leading off. Hey, that could be his ticket to the big contract, he went 3 for 3 and a walk on this breezy, freezing Thursday evening………

This signing got very little press when it went down. 1 year, around a million bucks. But this man’s contributions last year can’t go understated. Instead of trying to *state* them today, I’m just going to re-post what I wrote about him last August 22nd, the day before my now-hollow “August 23rd!!!!!!!!” call to arms……..

Your 3rd Place Willie Mac Winner: Guillermo Mota

DJLoo said, on December 12, 2011 at 5:51 pm (Edit)

How about (just for the off-season) try discussing all things non-baseball? The best and worst of anything. Great bosses, shitty jobs, best girlfriends, worst dates, a memorable stranger, a crazy neighbor, a good vacuum cleaner recommendation, anything!….No one can discuss Giant baseball incessantly…..

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Retro Game of the Day! (baby)

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June 22nd, 1980. The team is going nowhere and Steve Carlton is facing Vida Blue and the Phillies would beat us 4-3 today. With Jim Wohlford batting clean up I was surprised it wasn’t worse. Seriously, take a look at the LU after Clark—that’s goddamn near 6 automatic outs in a row. Carlton threw a complete game and ran his record to 13-2.

As I expected in the December 9th thread, the Giants tendered Fontenot and waved bye bye to Keppinger. Based on their fiscal considerations as well as the strengths of each player, this makes sense. We also took one step closer to a living a life without El Presidente–anarchy never felt so good. The plan appears to be to let Stewart back up Posey and I’m fine with that for a short time. Stewey has a rocket arm and can lay a bunt down with the best of them. But he’s not a season-long answer. And if Bochy follows through on his plan to play Posey at 1st base vs lefties then Stewart isn’t going to fly behind the plate at a minimum of twice a week. I think the Giants just want to make SURE that Hector is ready for the job and they’ll watch him closely in the first month of the AAA season. If he’s hitting, he’ll come up some time in May.

E-Burriss looks like he’s also going to make the team as a super-utility guy. I’ve always WANTED to see him succeed at this level. He looks like a player, walks like a player, runs like a player; he just can’t seem to hit or field like one. The most surprising thing about him: 651 plate appearances and only 1 triple. You’d think he’d get credited with at least 3 or 4 just rolling out of bed in the morning. Anyway, this is probably his last shot at the mlb level. If he learns how to bunt, plays smarter defense and steals a bunch of bases he might have a nice little career when it’s all over. If not, he’s an ugly cross-breed of Joe Strain and Spook Jacobs…….

There are other utility guys out there. Ryan Theriot is available. He and Fontenot played together at LSU and actually won the College Baseball World Series in 2000 beating my Stanford Cardinal. Bastards. But if they didn’t tender Keppy they certainly aren’t going to sign Theriot who hits worse and would cost about the same. Burriss is the guy, for better or worse…….

Retro-Action Time…..

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I’m trying to skip through 1980 fast. May 31st caught my eye. The Astros are in town for a Saturday game and JR Richard faced off against The Count. Richard threw a 3 hit complete game shutout running his record to 6-3 and his ERA to 1.85. What a bad-ass this dude was. He was dominating in 1980, by the middle of the Summer he was 10-4 with a 1.90 ERA> Sadly, he suffered a stroke on July 30th before a game. His survived but his career ended. He would go on to pitch in the Astros minor league system for a few years but never made it back to the big leagues. He would end up losing everything and became homeless in 1994, living under a bridge in Houston. In ’95 he became eligible for the mlb pension. I’m not sure how much that is a year…..

Andrew Luck didn’t win the Heisman. It wasn’t surprising to me but it was still a bit of a buzzkill…….

The Raiders got destroyed again. I can’t put my finger on it but there is something that I’ve never really liked about Hue Jackson. It’s like he’s all words and no substance. Anyway, he’s annoying and I wonder how many times he will take responsibility for this blowout loss. And what exactly is taking responsibility to him? Just saying the words? When you’re getting blown out and destroyed in back to back weeks there is something majorly wrong with everything….

The Niners lost and clearly that was because God was engineering the Bronco’s comeback win. Must not have had time for the Niners. 🙂 Smith didn’t play well. He was less accurate than usual. That could have had to do with a ferocious blitz coming from all sides every single freaking play. I hope Harbaugh et al. sees what everyone else saw and makes adjustments. With no time to throw and a receiving core that either can’t separate and/or can’t catch when it hits them in the numbers, well, you’re not going to score points consistently. Smith’s scramble on their final play of the game was magnificent. Hunter HAS to catch that ball……

The Bronco’s won. I’ve never liked them all the way back to my college days when my roommate was a rabid Denver fan. He was devastated and embarrassed by their 55-10 thrashing at the hands of the Niners and I still remind him of that game. Over the years, my feelings about them have dulled a bit, I haven’t had a good reason to dislike them. Until now. I don’t have a problem with Tim Tebow, he seems like a nice enough guy. I enjoyed watching him play in college. It’s the praise and the credit he gets that bothers me. The team isn’t winning because of Tebow. They’re winning because of their defense. He’s definitely resilient and a winner, a warrior, all that. But the credit he’s getting is more annoying than a Hue Jackson press conference.

At least nothing bad happened to the Giants. Manny Ramirez said something funny this weekend. When asked if he would consider playing in Japan he goes, “We are the working class and where ever there is work, we must go to work.” Um, dude, you’ve made 200+ million in your career in salary alone. What *working class* do you belong to? LQTM……

Retro Time……..

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It’s 1980 and this was not a good year. We never led. I don’t think I’m gonna spend to much time on 1980. Dave Bristol is the manager. Today, is the home opener. We won 7-3 on a Vida Blue complete game. The Rennie Stennett Era has begun…….

Last night’s *great* debate prompted me to notice just how many players from the 2010 team fell from the peak they reached on November 1st, 201o. The collective fall is shocking, really.

Let’s take a look at what happened to the main hero’s from the World Series team:

Posey: suffered a horrific ankle injury, gone for most of the year.

Freddy Sanchez: Was plugging along with his passable season until he broke down again and wasn’t seen after June 10th.

Edgar Renteria: outside of one glorious swing that will cement him in SF glory for eternity, he didn’t have a very good 2010. He managed to have a worse 2011 for the Reds. His ba dipped from .276 to .251 and his OPS dropped from .707 to .654.

Aubry Huff: his OPS was .891 in 2010. Last year it dropped to an unbelievable .691. Even that seems a little high from what I remember about his 2011.

Cody Ross: He got hurt in Spring Training and then went on to have a similar season to the rest of his seasons. But was still a far cry from his explosive 2 months he spent with us when he first arrived.

Juan Uribe: Just a horrible, horrible year for the Dodgers. He got hurt and only played in 77 games but his HR total dropped from 24 to 4. His batting average was .204 for the year. Total break down.

Pat Burrell: He only played in 92 games hardly mattering in any of them. His career is now over with a terminal foot problem.

Andres Torres: his 2011 vs 2010 season has already been discussed. He’s looking to re-start his career in New York.

In fact, the ONLY position player from the 2010 team who didn’t tank in 2011 was Pablo Sandoval who took his game to a new level this year. However, I don’t count Pablo as an integral piece of the World Series title. He just wasn’t…….

And I think the pitchers had a BETTER 2011, especially in terms of consistency. They were immune to the fall that hit the batters……

So that is 8 position players who were the MOST responsible (not counting pitchers) for the 2010 season. And all 8 took gynormous, epic steps backwards the following year. Who knows what the reasons could be that all 8 fell back in such collective, horrendous fashion. Some of it might have been within their control. Some of them didn’t do what they needed to do in the off season to prepare. Some of them might have gotten to *big* for themselves and that might have led to some false hubris. Then there were the things that they couldn’t control: injuries, teams gunning for them, pressure. Or in Torres’ case, struggles with appropriate levels of medication…..

Years from now there will be a better frame of reference for the place these men have in Giants lore. Time passes and you tend to get more nostalgic about the things and the people that have made up the experiences in your life. It would be difficult for me to put any of them on a list that includes McCovey and Mays, at least until their careers are complete. And to me, they don’t go on a list of *great* or *good* Giants. They transcend either, in my opinion. Just as I don’t feel that Torres or Huff could ever go on a list that includes McCovey or Mays, I wouldn’t ever put McCovey or Mays on a list that includes Torres or Huff.

As I said after they won the World Series: that team is a supernova that will never burn out. It’s just flying a little far away from us right now–the burn is more of a distant glow. But it’ll come back as time passes. No matter how many titles we win there is nothing like your *first*…….

Well, the Winter Meetings have come and gone–mostly free agent signings, no big trades, lots of tweets that led to nothing, as I suspected.  Our LU is now basically set with just a couple of minor decisions to make. Here’s what I would do:

1) Sign Chris Stewart to back up Posey and send Hector Sanchez down to AAA. Stewart backs up Posey while Sanchez gets a month or two more of valuable playing time. If Stewart is showing he’s a glaring weakness by the middle of May, bring Sanchez up then–he can play twice a week against left handed pitchers with Posey moving to first base……..

2) Fonte-yes! Offer him arbitration instead of Keppy. I think they’ll do this just to save a little money but it’s probably the right call just because Font can play SS with more predictability and probable success than Keppy can. Plus, he’s got more pop than Kepp and can PH better than he can…..

3) I’ve been kicking around the outfield scenarios and there’s one that I just don’t think has gotten enough attention: Bochy is saying Nate is his starting RF but the more I think about it, the more I could see the following develop: Belt has a monster spring and Nate has a bad/mediocre Spring. Belt wins an outfield spot (either playing LF or RF with Melky playing the *other* corner spot) and Nate resumes his accustomed 4th OF role. In my opinion, Nate is a better late inning PH weapon/defensive replacement than he is a starter. He’d be more durable that way, too. Anyway, I think this could easily happen………

With the additions of Melky (a 200 hit player. Will Clark never had 200 hits in a season) and Angel (stolen base artist extraordinaire) as well as the return of Freddy Sanchez, Posey and an *on* year from Huff (or a coming out year for Belt) that is FIVE additions to the offense that we didn’t have last year. I’m fine with the team as it is now. When you upgrade 5 of the 8 possible LU spots, and you actually managed to drop your payroll a little bit, you have done more than any reasonable fans could expect you to do as a GM. I’m feeling very confident about the 2012 season on December 9th………

Retro Time……….

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I’m growing weary of 1979, so let’s fast forward to the third to last game of the season. It’s September 28th and exactly 2,861 fans showed up for this one. If that’s correct, that’s hilarious. We lost 2-0 by a complete game gem from Eric Rassmussen. Winfield banged his 34th bomb. Besides The Boney One turning 9 years old today, it’s also exactly 32 years before one of the most electrifying and memorable days in baseball history: September 28th, 2011.

KNBR callers were boo-hooin’ yesterday about the Giants payroll ceiling of 130 million. “Why can’t they do what the Marlins are doing?????” caller after caller whined to Ralph and Tom. Shockingly, The hosts didn’t respond with an answer, they almost seemed to feel the same way…..

They didn’t remind them that the Marlins are moving into a brand new stadium with accompanying new revenue streams. They didn’t remind them that the Marlins had a payroll of 57 million last year. In 2010 it was 47 million. In 2009 it was 36 million. That’s a total of about 140 million in three seasons, 10 million more than the Giants will be spending this year alone….

And is anyone stopping to look at how the Marlins are spending their money? Reyes for 106 million. Buehrle for 58 million. Bell for 27 million. And they tried (and look to have failed) to give 32 year old Albert Pujols a 10 year deal.  Assuming they’ve dodged the Pujols bullet, let’s see what those other 3 are going to cost this year (approximately): Reyes 17 mil, Buehrle 14 mil, and Bell 9 mil. That’s 40 million more added to the 57 million they spent last year and they still aren’t to 100 million. In 2012 there isn’t a reason in the world why a team with a brand new stadium shouldn’t have a payroll of AT LEAST 100 million. Maybe they will after all there other guys settle in arbitration. The point is that The Marlins aren’t doing anything extraordinary. It just seems that way because it’s, you know, THE MARLINS.

They’ll be good next year but not JUST because of those additions. And they are NO LOCK by any means. J-John is going to have to come back and be healthy and be the ace of that staff. It sure as hell won’t be Buehrle who’s like a *rich man’s Carlos Silva*. Granted, he’s better than that guy, but he’s cut from the same mold, an innings eater who scored a big deal with Seattle a few years ago for no good reason. Mark my words: Buerhle’s dukey-crap isn’t going to fly in the NL. he’s an AL pitcher. 58 million not well spent, in my opinion.

Heath Bell? Yeah, I like Bell. But it’s not like he’s filling some huge hole from last year. Leo Nunez (or whatever his REAL name is) saved 66 games for them the last 2 years. My point is that Bell isn’t going to measurably impact that side of the game for them. He’s just going to step in and keep it going. 27 million is a lot of cheese to spend to just keep the status quo…….

And then there is Jose Reyes. If you think Reyes is going to stay healthy for the length of this deal then you have more faith in him than I do. He could be great next year, a super star. Or, his hammy could go on him at any point in the season and he’ll be turned into a cheerleader (and probably a bad one).

So while everyone is marveling at the Marlins this off season I’ll be LQTM at them. We will have a better record than they will in 2012………

Retro Action Time……………..

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It’s Augst 12th, 1979. Giants win 4-1. The wheels have fallen off pretty good this season so I’m skipping through it rather quickly. We are in 3rd place but 12 games out. The Dodgers are in town for this Sunday afternoon game and they’re in 4th place, 15.5 games behind. Vida Blue is going against Jerry Reuss. Vida isn’t having the best year but he manages to go the distance in this one lowering his ERA to an unsightly 5.19. No pinch hitters or relievers used in this one by the Giants.

To me, this is a fantastic trade in terms of what a trade SHOULD be all about. Both teams are taking some risk here, both could obviously reap a big reward, either could end up looking bad, and the main component isn’t about shedding salary (well, a little bit for the Giants). We obviously won’t know the winner and the loser in this one until the season plays out. It’s possible that neither Pagan or Torres return to their 2010 glory. Both players are getting a fresh chance with a new team but if both stay fizzled in their 2011 form it won’t be the biggest surprise. Obviously, both Sabean AND Alderson think their *guy* won’t bounce back or they wouldn’t be making the trade. And since Pagan had a little bit better year than Torres and it could be argued that he has a slightly better chance to return to being a productive player at the plate, Sabes had to throw Ramirez in, too. I’m fine with that.

Here’s another thing, assuming they’re both healthy in ST, I think they will both be starting outfielders for their respective squads when camp breaks in 2012. Torres is going to slide right into the CF position for the Mets. And despite the early talk about Pagan being a 4th OF for us, I think that’s a bunch of poppycock. Huff will be starting at first base with Pagan in CF and Melky in LF. I don’t care what you hear out of Bochy and Sabean TODAY, barring injury, this will be the plan on Opening Day. Feel free to copy and paste this back in my face if it doesn’t happen.

I think Sabean has been fairly brilliant with his “Melky/Pagan” moves. Three things we didn’t have last year (well, AT LEAST 3 things we didn’t have last year): 1) a lead off guy 2) speed/stolen base threats 3) reliable right handed bats. Melky and Pagan improve us in ALL three of those areas. Now, I’m not certain about what this does to the LU, but IF it goes Pagan/Melky/Panda then we now have 3 competent switch hitters in a row in the first third of our line up— that is huge, especially later in a game when managers try to go *match ups* on us. Now, Freddy will probably bat 2nd but you can at least see the possibility of our line up looking like that should Bochy decide to go that way.

Defense really isn’t taking a hit here. If this move pushes Huff back to 1st base then it has IMPROVED our outfield defense. Torres wasn’t going to start for us in 2012. So while it cannot be argued that Pagan is even in the same ballpark as Andres defensively, it’s not really something to compare since our ACTUAL outfield defense just got better (unless you think that Huff is a better defensive outfielder than Pagan and if you think that I can’t help you)……

Another thing I’m not worried about: The fact that the Mets were willing to part with Pagan. For starters, the Mets suck. Bad teams make bad decisions, that just what they do. Alderson is trying to fix that mess and it can’t be argued that his sole opinion is that Andres is more like than Pagan to bounce back to 2010 form since he got Ramirez in the deal, too. It can be argued that it is far more likely that Sabean feels Pagan is the more likely bounce back candidate since he’s the one throwing in the *extra* into the deal. And Sabean has made way too many good decisions over the last couple of years to not give him the benefit of the doubt on this. Again, I’m on record as liking both the Melky and the Pagan acquisitions, and if they both fail then feel free to remind me later. Just remember, we had one of the worst offenses in the history of baseball last year so it’s not like Melky has to reproduce 2011 or Pagan has to be Pagan-2010 for this to be considered a success for Sabean. Coming close to either year will be enough to make us better offensively. Considering the financial restrictions that he’s under, I think he’s having a fabulous off season so far……..

Lots of tweets. Not a lot of action. Most of these rumors have me shaking my head sideways. I feel like the Giants are in the cat bird’s seat if they do NOTHING at all. This is like watching the start of the Running of the Bulls in Spain. I’m watching safely from above from some hotel roof. Down below are scenes like this one:

For those of you unclear on the metaphor, you see the bull is the free agent and the two dudes….oh never mind.

There is some major insanity about to go down in the free agent world. Albert Pujols will be 32 next month. And he’s got a 10(!) (t-e-n) year deal on the table from the clueless Marlins……CJ Wilson has a SIX year offer from what could be multiple teams–mark my works, CJ Wilson will be the *Barry Zito* of this free agent class. Book it. Mark Freaking Beuhrle has 14 teams interested in him. I would be BUMMED if Sabean signed Beurhle to even a 2 year deal. Beurhle sucks, he’s an innings eater at best but could probably  fill our #5 slot adequately…..J-Roll’s agent got pissed off and shut down a meeting when the Phillies continued to balk at his 5 year mandate for a contract……

Meanwhile, Ned Coletti has cornered the market on below average utility infielders. Seriously, what type of team is he trying to field next year? Is he planning on Kemp wheelin’ it big in the outer outfield, Ethier play rover and 5  underwhelming infielders scurrying around covering the rest of the defense? That dude has lost his mind………..

Sabean simply can’t do anything that would come close to the madness I’ve listed above. At worst he signs some sh!tty utility guy for a year (that is, assuming one gets past Ned). Personally, I’m going to have fun sitting back and watching the insanity unfold. I take great pleasure in watching other teams make dumb ass mistakes. Whether it’s the Nationals signing Werth to a 7 year deal or the Angels trading FOR Vernon Wells, other teams idiocy can only directly or indirectly help the Giants…..

Retro Action. Baby.

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It’s Sunday, June 17th 1979 and the Cardinals are in town. Bad Ass names abound in their starting line up. Yet we still beat them 7-4. Clark ripped his 11th on the year and McCovey went 3-4 running his average to an impressive .291 (he would end the year at .249). This win nudged us to 4.5 games out of first place, the last time we would be this close the rest of the season. The wheels fall off pretty good in 1979…….

Well, don’t expect much. At least in terms of trades. I haven’t researched this, but it FEELS to me like the Winter Meetings haven’t had the same excitement to them that they had in years past. I think that has more to do with the deluge of information that we get now. Back in the day, all you heard about was a deal getting done once it was consummated.  Now you’ve got a million-fold media guys tripping over themselves to be the first to tweet out anything that even remotely resembles a rumor—it skews what’s really going on in Dallas this week: steaks and strippers. At least that’s what my Winter Meetings in Dallas would look like…..

Reyes signed his 6r/106 million dollar deal. The Marlins will regret the deal in the long term. Fast guys with injury problems who sign giant contracts don’t get more durable or more productive  into their 30’s. But they aren’t really worried about production at the plate, they’re worried about his impact at the gate, and signing Reyes isn’t a bad move at least initially for a team moving into a new ballpark……..

At least we don’t need to worry about Sabean signing anyone long term– he learned his lesson a long time ago and the new *board of directors* wouldn’t sign off on one anyway. I do think we will see a lot of free agent action this week. The  Reyes deal probably will get the domino’s to fall for the bigger free agent targets—Pujols, Fielder, Wilson, etc….

If I were writing out a wish list for this week, I think I’d like to see Sabean sign either Coco Crisp or Josh Willingham. We’ve already discussed the reasons here before so I won’t go over them again. But Coco at the top of the LU (with Melky in LF) or Willingham in LF (Melky in CF) would really get me excited about the 2012 LU. If neither deal happens I’m cool with it, and I don’t think either will go down, they’re just small moves that I think would make us better next year. I’d give either guy a two year deal. But they’re probably find more dough somewhere else…….

Retro-Time………

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On May 25th the Giants were 25-20 and tied for first place. It was the last time they would see 1st place that season. They proceeded to lose 10 of their next 11. They fiddled around a little more, trading a win and a loss. Today it’s June 13th, 1979, and the Cubbies are in town. We lost 3-2. Mike Krukow started for the Cubs and Dick Tidrow followed him with 2 innings of relief. 9,284 showed up for this Wednesday game—it’s not listed if this was a night game or a day game. The Count pitched for the Giants. It was an extra inning game that ended in the 10th when the Cubs went ahead against Randy Moffitt. There was no magic in the bottom of the inning as Clark, McCovey and Madlock all went quietly, as most did at the time, against HOF closer Bruce Sutter. Sutter actually won the Cy Young award in ’79.Joe Nieko, JR Richard, Tom Seaver and Kent Tekulve filled out 2-5……

I’m posting this because I’ve got nothing for tomorrow except Niner sh!t and many of the regs aren’t down with that. And don’t take this post the wrong way, I’m not mad or bent, I just don’t understand the Halicki Raggers……

So what if he’s coming up a lot in the RGOTD? Go check the games, he pitched every 4th day, not every 5th,  and he was a freaking loss-stopper-extraordinaire……Plus he seemed to go 8 innings and/or complete game more often than the rest of  many of  his peers. The fact that I know that from a couple of weeks of casual baseball-reference.com research is fantastic. Plus he pitched a no-hitter in the first game I ever attended. He was also a  long, lanky, memorable dude from the 70’s and WE all rule. His last name was rad, too…….

Here’s how I come up with RGOTD (In order of importance):

1) It’s got to be a home game

2) I look for streaks of wins, losses or broken streaks of wins or losses.

3) I check the LU’s. I’m trying to vary it with some LU’s that get everyone talkin’ and that’s easy to do since I just started this Winter Side Bar widget……..

4) I look at the pitching match ups or the pitching winners and losers. You see some pretty sweet and epic names there…..

5) I’m trying to tell a story.

In summary, and at risk of *over-responding* to the Halicki Hysteria, I will end today’s thread with this: you’re going to still see a fair number of Halicki pitched games, at least for the next week or three. I’ll pick out tomorrow’s RGOTD when I get up tomorrow. I realize and accept the pressure I am now under to go with a *Jim Barr* game. LQTM…..

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It’s May 25th, 1979. The Braves are in town and they suck. Matthews? Burroughs? Horner? Can you spell B-A-D-A-S-S? We won 6-4, The Ripper banged another one in the 8th off Phil Niekro who went the distance but took the loss. Shockingly, Ed Halicki did NOT pitch. Knepper did and he ran his record to an impressive 5-2. He would go 9-12 on the year…….

Unless Sabes does something unusual, today will be a quiet day in my sports world. Club tryouts for soccer are dominating the day. I would have watched the Ducks/Bruins game but just found out that was played last night. I think LSU should handle Georgia fairly easily but Georgia’s got one thing going for them– they ALWAYS cover and sometimes win as the underdog when I bet of their opponent. I’m not betting today’s game so I guess they don’t have that going for them. I’ll probably catch some of the Ok-y/Ok-y St game just to find out who the Cardinal will be playing. I hope it’s Ok-St, that would be a more interesting game. I wish Stanford could get a shot at LSU or ALabama and we could see how a good QB would do against those defenses. I’m not saying they’re overrated or anything, but every time I watch them play they are facing a QB who has no business QBing a D-1 team against a defense that good……..

Baggs doesn’t think there’s any truth to the rumor that Sabean might trade some relief pitching at the Winter Meetings, citing the fact that the Giants signed Lopez and Affeldt, why would they turn around and trade them? Actually, I could see a scenario where Sabean decided early in this off season that the free agent market for relievers, utility guys and back up catchers was thin. So, instead of pick up a *Barmes* for $10 mil why not secure a section of the market that he could use as trade bait at the Winter Meetings? I’m not predicting he does this just that I could see him thinking ahead and doing it. Actually, I see it as  a great approach to this particular off season. If I had to sign one of the available free agents I think I’d puke first–they’re either grossly overpaid in years and $ (the Reyes’, Fielders’, Pujols’ etc…) or they suck (Bloomquist, A-Gone, Barmes etc…). If Sabes has his eye on someone and thinks he can trade some relief pitching for him more power to him. The Yankees, by the way, are still desperate for a left handed reliever…..

Without further ado, Retro-Action, baby……….

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After starting 7-2 we then proceeded to go 2-12 over the next 14. Ouch. Today, let’s take a look at May 12th, 1979. Halicki pitched a complete game 4-1 victory over Randy Lerch–super skinny tall fellow if I recall correctly. Roger Metzger’s meager hold on SS the last couple of years was starting to erode as a new young buck by the name of *Johnnie LeMaster* was starting to take over the position more regularly. Though he’d been with the big club for a few years, he was 25 in ’79 and Altobelli must have thought it was go-time for “J– Boo”. He got 3 hit today. He hit .254 for the year in ’79. For some unknown reason, I willfully collected a bunch of Del Unser baseball cards this year. I have no idea why……..

Those seem to be the 2 most likely utility guys that Sabes will target. Hairston is WAY more of a utility guy than Gonzalez, who is really just a shortstop. The only upside for either, if you could call it that, is that they could platoon with Crawford and at least have a chance of hitting lefties, pitchers that Crawford has proven can befuddle him with ease. I don’t know how a platoon situation would go over with a young guy like that since he doesn’t hit righties all that well either and I could see him pressing in games, especially when he knows a lefty is pitching the next day. But really, if you are worried that Alex Gonzalez or Jairy Hairy Whoever is going to take your job from you than you probably didn’t deserve the job in the first place.

I had a nightmare last night that had something to do with Buster Posey sliding into homeplate but just as he got there homeplate turned into a tidal wave that Barry Zito was surfing, engulfing both of them. The only living person left in the wake of the disaster was Eli Whiteside who was signing a 10 year extension outside of Hoover Tower at Stanford–don’t ask questions, it was just a dream……..

I can’t bring myself to cut and paste the list of remaining back up catchers. Blade posted it yesterday. It is underwhelming. And I’m not interested in a poll of Whitey(?) or Stewey(?) because they are both abominable. And this isn’t just about having a back up plan in case Buster goes down. He suffered a horrific injury, it is just not realistic to think that he’s going to come back after not playing almost an entire season and just slide easily behind the plate and start squatting down 200-250 times a game  for 150 games on that surgically repaired ankle. It makes far more sense to have an adequate back up (like Iannetta or Hernandez, both of whom are gone-zo) and let Buster play first base once or twice a week (especially against lefties). I hope Sabean keeps this in mind at the Winter Meetings where he can find a catcher who can actually play the position at the major league level………

Retro-Action Time, baby………..

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It’s April 13th, 1979 and the Astros are in town. Friday night, 16822 show up to see Halicki vs Joe Niekro. The Giants won 8-7 to run their record to an impressive 6-2. Unlike today’s Astro team, I recognize every single name in that starting LU. A couple weeks ago I said that everything from the ’70’s was either *badass* or *old school* and that Astro LU is both of those from the top to the bottom. Jack the Ripper banged a bomb and a triple and Mad Dog had 3 RBI’s to help with the win. A young, soon to be nicknamed *Hacman* Leonard entered midgame for the Astros, took over center field and went 1-2 with a run scored……..

Brandon Crawford’s vice-like grip on the SS job looks like more and more of a reality every day. Let’s look at The Flap Up to the Minute SS Free Agent Tracker:

Barmes: Off the table!

Santiago: Gone!

Adam Kennedy: Adios!

Willie Boomquist: Arrivederchi!

Alex Gonzalez: Ominously available……

Listening to Bochy on Ralph and Tom’s Show the other day, he did not sound too optimistic about Keppy coming back. His Spetember was ugly. It was *Rowand-like*, hitting .177. But the rest of his season he was right around .300. On a team that hits so poorly, I would think that .300 hitters would be welcomed back with open arms. He’s basically a healthier version of Freddy Sanchez. Anyway, Bochy’s interview was actually uncharacteristically revealing except for when he slipped back into auto-pilot on Keppinger with his usual array of cliche’s and generalities. That told me he’s not in their plans for 2012. Just a guess, though………

The available options are slim pickins’ unless you fancy *Slim* Gonzalez. I’m starting to think (hope) that Sabes pulls a rabbit out of his hat at the Winter Meetings–maybe tap into our bounty of relief pitching and pick up a utility guy that’s better than any of the 2011 FA utility players? It’s possible that Sabes deftly assessed the market for relief pitching, locked up all of his, and now he intends on trading Affeldt or Lopez for Jed Lowrie (his 2010 had me drooling on him in 2011 until more injuries hit him). Hey, it could happen……….

And now, Retro-Action Time

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Let’s *fast forward* to 1979….It’s April 10th, the Home Opener. The season starts full of promise as the Giants win 3 of 4 from the Reds in Cincinnati to start the season. Vida Blue takes the hill against the iconic Gaylord Perry. 56,196 maniacs took the day off work for this ice-cold, windy (I’m just guessing here) Tuesday afternoon game. It was 2-2 going to the 9th, both hall of famers (well, Vida is in the BAHOF) were locked in an epic pitching battle, but Perry was the first to blink and he gave way to John D’Acquisto in the bottom of the 9th. Hot dog wrappers and other general debris swirl around home plate as he takes over for Perry. He gets 2 quick outs by striking out Ivie and getting Hill to ground out to 3rd. The crowd noise starts to swell as they see their hero, Willie McCovey, slowly emerge from the dugout and into the on deck circle to pinch hit for the light-hitting Metzger. Fifty-six thousand fans dream of the perfect ending, a walk off  HR by a man who’s delivered the gift  so many times before. But baseball’s a funny game, the unexpected is far more usual than the expected. Stretch doesn’t end it with a bomb but he does manage to muscle a single into right field. The inning stays alive and Altobelli turns to the little used and barely known “John Tamargo” to pinch hit for Vida. A now-grumbling crowd exhales and prepares for the likely inevitability of extra innings.Venable pinch runs for the aged McCovey…..

He lets the first pitch sail past and it’s called a ball. D-Acquisto winds and delivers. Tamargo swings…..And that’s hit deep!!!! This one has a channnnccce……. Gone!!!!!!! It’s Gone!!!!! John Tamargo has WON IT  for the Giants!!!!!!!!!!!

Walk off. Giants win 4-2. An epic baseball moment unfolds. Tamargo went on to hit one other HR for the Giants that season. He hit 4 total in his 5 year major league career that ended the next season in 1980 in Montreal. But what a *moment* he delivered that day. I doubt that any of the 56,196 ever forgot the day that John Tamargo sent them home happy  on that glorious Tuesday afternoon…..

The fact that Sabean and Bochy got extended isn’t a surprise or even newsworthy. Everyone knew this would happen. What is a little surprising is the widespread vitriol you can find on the internet about Sabean. Of course, I knew he had his detractors– for several years I was one of them. And it was justified for a long time– he was at least 3-4 years too late in responding to how to build a team once The Bonds Era started to fail. But he adapted, made some changes in his approach to building a team and, along with some luck, ended up bringing a World Series to San Francisco. Boom. End of criticism………

Except it wasn’t the end of the criticism. I’m not going to inadvertently advertise the websites that call for Sabean to be fired– yes, THE WEBSITES. There are guys out there with so little to do with their time that they make “Fire Sabean” part of their daily lives. And that’s really unbelievable. I’ve continued to criticize Sabean when it’s been appropriate. No one is perfect and he made several mistakes last year (not finding an adequate back up catcher, Tejada signing, O-Cab signing, etc…). Part of the gig of being a major league GM is exposing yourself to criticism from the fan base on the mistakes you make. But to spend part of your life managing a website that calls for the firing of a man who brought you a World Series championship—wow, you either have too much time on your hands or you’re just ignorant.

It’s the same mentality that the “Alex Smith Haters” take. They’re too stupid or too stubborn to celebrate in the joy that Smith is helping bring them. They’d rather keep on hating him because *hate* is something they’re good at….

We’re really just talking about fringe lunatics here. The Sabean haters, the Smith haters— it’s the minority. But they’re loud. And if there’s one thing they are good at, and it really is probably just this single thing they are good at, it’s staying committed to an opinion or a cause, however misguided or ignorant it might be. If only they could channel that focus into something productive. But that isn’t ever going to happen. ….

You can spot normal people when it comes to debates about guys like Sabean and Smith. They usually say things like “Wow, I didn’t think he had that in him.”  Or, “Oh, he’s doing something I didn’t think he could do.” “Hmmmm, turns out I was wrong about him.”

Stuff like that.

The haters? They stick to obsessively building their websites of doom and gloom. They post their hate speech and their death threats from the dark corner of their empty apartment. They don’t have much but they’ve got a laptop and that allows them to spew their idiocy into society, a place they otherwise have very little interaction with.

Anyway, I am fine with the extensions for Sabean and Bochy. I’m hoping the Niners offer Alex Smith one this off season, too. A 3 year deal sounds about right. But who knows, another team might come along and offer him more. The Niners will be fine, Harbaugh will whip up another masterpiece and we’ll be full steam ahead in 2012.

As I got older in life, I realized that hating people and things didn’t do anything other than boomer rang back to me and make my life miserable. Your attitude is the single most important thing you can control in your life. Something you CAN’T control? Other people. This is an important concept to *get* if you want to be involved in the blog world……..

It looks like Ndamukong Suh is going to get at least 2 games for his Thanksgiving Day Stomp. Good. He deserves at least a day for his pathetic explanation to the media after the game. Now he’s calling Goodall to apologize? Whatever. Idiot……

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Luck is supposedly still in the running to win the Heisman. Of course, I hope he wins it but there are several deserving candidates for the award—- Richardson and Griffin both could win. Barkley has 17 td’s in his last 4 games but probably has no shot with most of the West voting for Luck. Fitzgerald noted in the Chron what I observed the other day: Luck hasn’t been spectacular, especially in the 2nd half of the season. He’s played against inferior competition (as opposed to Richardson), he doesn’t have a signature win (like Griffin has over Oklahoma) and he’s hasn’t even been the best QB (stats wise) in his conference (Barkley has been phenomenal in the last month).

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I love that Neuheisel gets fired after his embarrassing 50-zip spanking. What happens if they somehow beat Oregon? Half that team would have to get injured in the first quarter, but it’s at least a possibility that they upset the Ducks. Then they play in the Rose Bowl? Ha, I’m almost rooting for that to happen, that would be quite a circus……..

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Retro Game ‘o the Day! September 26, 1978

It’s the last homestand of the year and the Giants are playing the Padres. The COunt was going up against Gaylord Perry in a Tuesday night game. Exactly 6,227 showed up to watch. Perry would win his 21st game of the season, easily the last great year of his HOF career. Roger Craig managed the Pad’s and this loss knocked us 7.5 back with 4 to play. Rollie Fingers got the save.

The Padres are playing at least 4 guys I’ve never heard of (Perkins, Turner, Evans and Almon) while Altobelli goes with a similar LU (except for Dwyer at 1st base) that he’s gone with most of the year……

I woke up to the thickest fog I’ve seen in my backyard in quite a while. No baseball news to discuss, certainly nothing Giants-related. And I didn’t have time to go-Retro before I left the house this morning (and I only have the snipping-tool on my computer at home (thank you, Twin).

WordPress sends me these extremely topical prompts for thread ideas. Here are today’s suggestions:

Need an idea for your next post?

Choose a prompt to start a new post:

• How do you save money?
• What other person or animal could you have been in a former life?
• If you had your own restaurant, what would it be called?

Um, I’m gonna decline these thread ideas but feel free to knock yourself out answering them if the moment strikes you. Anyway, feels like a *Haiku* morning. Maybe I’ll write one later today if I run out of things to do. It feels very dead in the baseball world right now. How many days till P/C report?

One of the best things about Facebook: it reminds me of stuff like this~~~~~

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAN DAWG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m REALLLLY looking forward to that Pac 12 Championship game next week. Yeah, right. UCLA loses 50-0 and now they get to play in that game? Oregon will destroy them. What a terrible inaugural game that will be……..

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I loved seeing Luck run the ball last night. He showed how fast he is and that’s a nice reminder to the scouts of what that dude can do with his legs. He’s super accurate with his throws, he reads defenses like a 10 year NFL QB and he’s got legs to run for as much yardage as he needs to if the moment strikes him. I don’t think there’s an issue with his arm strength as I’ve seen him uncork 50 yard throws with defenders hanging on to him but he really didn’t show off his arm last night. In fact, I thought the play calling sucked and Shaw didn’t do Luck any favors by calling a bunch of screens all night.

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And that’s why I think Richardson wins the Heisman over Luck. Luck’s night was efficient but there weren’t any defining moments. Richardson had a HUGE defining moment when he broke through the Auburn line, ran down the left side of the field and then literally threw a defender out of his way, changed direction and ran diagonally across the field for an additional 30 yards, finally getting taken down around the 20. He did all that on his own and it was the type of run that Heisman voters remember–not to mention the fact that it was during prime time and Luck was playing his game when most of the East coast tv’s were turned off……..

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It’s Retro time, baby……….

On September 4th, the Giants lost to the Dodgers down in LA. This would begin a slide that would see them lose 10 of their next 11 games. Finally, on Sept 16th, we managed a 3-2 over the Reds at home. It was a Saturday afternoon game. No one homered for the Giants, but Foster did, banging out his 33rd hr of the year. The win was nice but the Giants were now 9 games back and the magic from earlier in the year seemed to be all but gone. 13 games remained in the season….

It looks like we are going to have some pro basketball this year. If all goes accordingly, there will be a 66 game regular season. I think we are all going to enjoy this abbreviated schedule. 66 is about the MOST they should be playing. While I am permanently disenchanted with the NBA as a whole, I am excited as a Warrior fan to see what this team can be without Cohan lurking in the background. I might even go to my first Warrior game since 2007. We’ll see……

And now, for a little Retro……….

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September 1st, 1978. It’s a Friday night game and the Phillies are in town. 16,431 showed up to see Carlton and a staple from the 70’s, Jim Barr, go head to head. The game time was 1:40 so they worked fast and economically. Jack Clark hit a tie breaking HR in the 8th off Carlton to put the G’s ahead for a 4-3 victory. Winning *best name of the game* is the Phillies leadoff hitter, Bake McBride. A 37th round draft pick in 1970, McBride went on to have a pretty decent 10 year career–He made $80,000 in 1977–how times have changed……..

It’s probably too much to hope for Sabes to pull off a lil’ Black Friday Magic and find us another outfielder or two. Maybe a shortstop. A catcher. Oh well, nothing is happening right now. Could be a good day for a Haiku. Last night’s Niner game was frustrating on both sides of the ball, we were out coached and outplayed. When you give up 9 sacks and record none, you have officially had your ass handed to you. Surprisingly, if the Ginn TD is allowed and/or the interception called instead of PI, we might have won that game……..

How about some Retro Action?

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It’s August 29th, 1978 and Joe Torre’s Mets are in town. 34K showed up for this night game. The Mets were in the middle of  an awful year and when you look at that line up it’s no surprise why. Bob Knepper handcuffed them in pitching a complete game 2-0 shut out to run his record to 14-9 on the year….

Happy Thanksgiving, Flappers. There’s a lot of things that I’m thankful for–most notably the soon-to-be 9 year old who woke me up at 4am because of “a noise” (I’m like, “ok……AND?”). Now I’m bleary eyed and she’s sleeping peacefully  just a few feet away from me as I type this. But she’s perfect in every imperfect way and I love her more than anything in my life and there isn’t a close 2nd. I hope all of you appreciate the things in your life  to be thankful for today…….

I’ve gone back and forth on how this Niner game is going to shake down. I started out the week thinking there was no way we could win with the short week and the travel. Now I think we can win. For starters, the time change really only affects us if it’s a 10am start and that’s not an issue here with the game kickoff at 5:20pm. Secondly, the Ravens are dealing with the same turnaround so EVERYONE’S body is going to be a little tight and *un-recovered* from last Sunday’s game. And once I heard that Ray Lewis has turf toe I started to believe that we just might pull this thing off. I’ve never had that injury but I’ve known people who have had it  and they would just shake their head and say “dude, you have no idea how much this hurts.”  Good. I’ve got no problem celebrating another player’s temporary pain especially when it might translate into an advantage for the Niners. I’m assuming Lewis will try to go because that’s just who that dude is, but he won’t be able to go hard in any direction and will be reduced to being an on-field cheerleader.

If I were the Niners, I would come out throwing. Everyone expects us to run the ball, not make any mistakes and push the ball slowly up the field. But I trust Smith at this point in the year. I want to see lots of play -action, maybe some roll outs and throws on the run. Throw in some defensive take-a-ways which you KNOW Flacko will give you, and I am now seeing a Niner victory that looks something like 23-10.

I’ve accepted the possibility that I *kool-aded* myself into coming up with that score. But you know what? Who cares. It’s a great day to be hopeful. Even more so, appreciate what you have. And what we know we have is a 9-1 record. It’s been a long time since it felt this good to be a 49er fan.

And there’s not a more perfect day on the calendar to say this and, more importantly, believe this: Who’s got it better than us? Noooooooooooobody!!!!

Today, I am applying that to every aspect of my life and will remind myself of that the next time I get awakened at 4am by a quiet voice that whispers urgently, “Daddy, I heard a noise!”

The news of this agreement passing happened in an almost surreal way. With the NBA shutting itself down and the NFL barely coming to agreement to play this year, baseball has skipped along and formed a labor agreement that avoids a work stoppage through at least 2016. This was a refreshing outcome for fans. And when you read the details of the agreement, you almost wonder if the players read the actually agreement that they agreed to.

The highlights:

1) testing for human growth hormone, no more smokeless tobacco usage on camera or in view of the fans and players who get DUI’s have to undergo a mandatory evaluation with the league. There are loopholes in all of this, especially the HGH testing, but it is amazing to me that the players would agree to this type of invasion on their personal lives. I mean, they’ve never agreed to any of this before. Why now?

2) limits of bonuses for players drafted out of high school and college as well as limits on bonuses for foreign players. Whhhhhhaaaat? How the Hell did this get slipped in so easily? I would think that if Scott Boras, who pretty much designed and defined this side of the baseball world, would have given two huge thumbs down to anything with the words “limit” and “bonus” in the same sentence. Obviously he doesn’t vote, but he represents so many players I have to believe he was screaming at them to kick this provision out of the deal. And yet there it is, plain as day. I wasn’t able to find what the limits are and maybe they haven’t been identified yet. Either way, this will be great for baseball. It should encourage all teams to develop their scouting departments, especially internationally, and allow more teams to compete for the best and the brightest young foreign players. Huge, HUGE win for Yoenis Cespedes, who is going to get a gynormous bonus that future players will only dream of getting. Excellent provision in the new deal…..

3) realignment–Houston is going to the AL. This was a known condition and it’s fine with me, I could care less about the Astros. It will lead to another wild card team, something I think is super cool. A 1 game playoff-sudden death-for all the marbles game to kick off the playoffs? Hell yeah, that will be awesome. And as many teams have proven over the last 10 years or so, getting into the playoffs is all you need to do to have a realistic chance of winning the world series. Every fan should appreciate this provision……..

4) maple bats will be prohibited for any player entering the league starting in 2013. I’m assuming this will be the beginning of the end of the use of maple bats. Since this is just affected new players it will be a long road towards total extinction, but at least it’s a start. Maple bats are deadly weapons and it’s a miracle that more players in the infield aren’t injured or even killed by them……

5) increased replay. This is just something that needs to happen in baseball. The ball gets hit so hard and the human eye can only catch so much. I’m 100% for replay in everything but calling balls and strikes. The new provision adds replay for fair/foul calls as well as balls that are trapped or not–huge, positive addition to the game.

There are other details, the minimum player salary gets bumped a little, etc, but these 5 major changes are what stood out for me. And now, on to a RGOTD search…….

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Today we take a look at August 25th. The Giants had just come back from a long 13 game east coast road trip. They managed to win the last 3 to nab 6 wins on the trip and they came home to a friday night diddy against the Expos. 15,368 showed up to welcome them home but it wasn’t enough as the Montreal banged out 16 hits and beat us 8-5.

I did a little LQTM this morning when I read that Verlander said “I think this set a precedent.” Uh, dude, 24 other pitchers have won the MVP….

Did I have a problem with him winning it? Heck no. I believe that the MVP should he dominant, first and foremost. Usually, for that to happen, it’s going to be a position player since you would recognize dominance more often if you see it every day rather than every 5th day. But in this case, the circumstances really did come together for Verlander. First of all, he was absolutely dominant. He won 24 games, exactly 25% of his team’s total wins. He won the pitcher’s triple crown. Without him there is no way Detroit makes the playoffs. Of the contenders, he’s also the only one who stood above the others in terms of obviously impacting their berth in the playoffs…..

The other guys? Yes, Ellsbury, Bautista, THEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GRAAAAAAAAAAANDYMAN!!!! and Miggy Cabrera all had fine years. But none of those guys were dominant the way Verlander was. Hell, Boston and Toronto didn’t even make the playoffs. And Granderson was just another one of the big bats on that team. He put up great numbers but that team always has 3 or 4 or more guys going “cartoon” on the league. You take Grandy out and they still go off. Don’t believe me? A-Rod was a non-factor in the second half and they still walked away with the division. Tex had a great season too but he didn’t even get an MVP vote (I don’t think). Grandy hit .262. You better bang out 100 hr’s if you’re gonna hit .262 and expect to win the MVP. And Miggy? Sure he played in a lot more games than Verlander but can you point to 25% of their wins and give him DIRECT credit for winning them? No way.

Were I wearing a hat this morning, it would be doffed in the direction of Justin Verlander—an award well-earned……

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The Retro Game of the Day!!!!!

As we march through the Summer of ’78, we now take a look at a Friday night Giants/Dodgers game. 47,944 showed up for this one. Vida Blue vs Doug Rau. Wuite a battle. The Giants won 2-1. Vida started the 9th having giving up a single hit. He got the first 2 outs then Reggie Smith banged a double off him. That was enough for Altobelli who pulled him for Moffitt who got Cey to fly out to center to end the game. I would LOVE to know how many pitches Vida through that game but I couldn’t find that number at baseball-reference.com. This great win sent the Dodgers to their 6th straight loss of the season. We’re still in first place……..

All of this *Retro Game of the Day* stuff had me waxing nostalgic about Candlestick Park. Specifically, all the good times I had growing up tailgating with friends and then kicking back in the left field bleachers. I can’t remember when they disallowed the fans from jumping the the rail and chasing after the hr balls that would land in the grassy area just beyond the left field fence. As I recall, they stopped letting fans go after  the ball and then maybe a few years later they took the entire space out and replaced it with seats–a good move for a better view from left field, I guess. But very few fans out there were looking for a better view of the game.

It looks like this pic was from the late 60’s because they still have the artificial turf in. I can’t remember when they put in the grass. 1978 or so? I couldn’t find that info either.

So, if any of you have the answers to the following 3 questions, I’d appreciate it….

1) what year did they put grass into Candlestick?

2) what year did they stop letting fans chase hr balls in the left field bleachers?

3) what year did they take that area out entirely and put seats in all the way up to the left field wall?

I didn’t have time to do a RGOTD before I left this morning so maybe tomorrow…..

Sorry I missed the thread yesterday– Big Game is sort of a 24 hour thing. Anyway, Stanford won in unspectacular fashion. The university needs to put in new turf. Find a lawn guy who knows his stuff. But I’ll tell you, they’ve always had a problem with the grass there. When we were kids we used to just be able to walk into the back of the stadium and play football on the field (total 1979 thing to do, can you imagine being able to do that today?). We’d go over there after it rained to play “mud” football. Me and  a half dozen buddies were enough to turn that field into slop in 30 minutes that barely resembled a field. It’s unacceptable to have a D1 powerhouse playing on a field that the across-the-street Palo Alto Vikings would find sub par…….

Anyway, to the minor news of Villalona being placed on the 40 man roster. I say minor, because we probably wouldn’t be talking much about this guy if this were just strictly baseball news. Throw in the murder, arrest, payoff, dropped charges, 5 million dollar lawsuit against the Giants….well, now you have the makings of a good story. Or at least something to talk about.

Let’s refresh ourselves with who Villalona was as a baseball player— he was signed as a 16 year old and given a 2.1 million dollar bonus. He fiddled around (again, he was only 16) in 2007 through 3 levels in the system hitting 10 bombs in 474 total at bats. I didn’t calculate his OPS through those 3 stops but it was around .780. Then he goes to the Sally league and has a nice season with 17 hr’s in 500 at bats, hitting .263. He struck out a lot (118) and didn’t walk much (18). His OBP started to be a red flag (.312) which dragged his OPS a bit to a marginal .747. In 2009 he went to San Jose and had another decent year, hitting 9 bombs in 310 at bats. He kept striking out (73) and not walking (9) and his OBP dipped even further to an unacceptable .306. He checked in with a . 704 OPS—that wouldn’t pass for a first baseman at the mlb level and it’s unacceptable for the San Jose league. But remember, he was only 18 years old at the time. And Latin players, in general, don’t get out of the Dominican Republic by taking a lot of walks and having a spiffy OBP. They get noticed because they swing a big bat. They literally *swing* their way out of their country. But having said all that, up to this point in his career, Villalona was a great prospect who hadn’t really matched his prospect ranking with his production. Yet. Then his legal issues began and now that those are resolved, this is where we are today…..

What plans do the Giants have for Villalona? It has been reported that there were strong differences of opinion within the organization as to what to do with him. My guess is that they didn’t want to deal with the headache of the lawsuit and just decided to go ahead with him playing again in their system. After all, the charges against him were dropped. I strongly doubt that Villalona’s representatives leveraged the lawsuit as a way to make it on to the 40 man roster. The Giants just figured that once they decided to go ahead with his career in their system they might as well protect him from the Rule 5 draft. And that is a smart move since they might have lost him in that.

The best thing to do with Villalona is see what they have. He’s 21 now but he hasn’t played baseball in 2 years. My biggest concern with him would be to see what he looks like physically. This is a big kid who is probably WAY over his current listed weight of 200 lbs. It’s too bad the Giants couldn’t get someone down there to visit with him, see what he looks like and find out where his head is at in terms of playing baseball as a career. Since it’s all he’s ever known, I’m assuming he’s ready and wanting to play. But who knows? And if he’s ballooned up to 260 pounds was it really worth the Giants time in protecting him from the Rule 5 draft?

The best case scenario is that Villalona gets his career back on track and he starts putting up eye-catching numbers. Then we use him as trade bait. He was worth nothing to us if we hadn’t reinstated him and he would also be worth nothing to us if he had gotten drafted next week (I don’t think you receive compensation if one of your players is taken in the Rule 5 draft but maybe one of you can correct me if I’m wrong).

So the Giants did the smartest thing they could do with Villalona. They reinstated him and now don’t have to deal with a lawsuit. They put him on the 40 man so they can’t lose him to the draft. And the fact is, the kid has some skills. If he turns those skills into something that would fly at the major league level then he becomes valuable to the team. Will he ever play in San Francisco? Even if he’s successful from here on out I doubt he ever plays for us up here. I’m pretty certain there’s a chapter or 4 in The Giants Way that has to do with integrity, honoring the law, all that jazz.  And being bogged down in a murder case is probably at least enough for the organization  to pause and be concerned. But who knows, maybe The Giants Way got shoved into a box with the rest of Neukom’s things on his way out the door. It’s also possible that the brass could see Villalona as an insurance policy if Belt doesn’t pan out at first base.

I’m glad he’s getting a 2nd chance. Maybe this ordeal can be turned into a positive for him in terms of appreciating opportunities that you have in life. I would think that most 16 year old’s who are given 2.1 million might have a hard time staying focused and staying committed to long term life goals. Of course I don’t know a single thing about Villalona’s personality other than what I read his host family say about him after he was arrested (they liked him). His life was almost ruined by this. If he comes back hungry (for success, not food) then it could be a blessing in disguise. At the end of all of this, success on the baseball field will be good for him and for us. So from that stand point, I absolutely wish him the best and think that everything the Giants have done up till now with him was the correct way to deal with this complicated situation……..

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

As we work our way through the ’78 season, let’s take a look at July 5th. The Giants had just lost 3 in a row and they turned, once again, to Ed Halicki to get them a win (I’m not picking Halicki games on purpose he just happened to be pitching on the 3 games I’ve picked so far). He was going against “Bad Ass” Bobby Shirley. I’ve got no idea if he was a bad ass or not but it was ’78 and everyone from that decade was either “old school” or a “bad ass”.  Plus, he probably had to kick at least a few asses growing up as a kid for having the last name of a girl. Anyway, what I found interesting about this game is that the attendance was 8,394. That should cut down on the number of guys who will say they were there. Baha. Seriously, it’s the middle of Summer and the best you can do is 8k? Different time, different fan base, I guess. It seemed like a great game, the Giants scored 3 in the 4th and led 3-0 going to the 8th. Lavelle and Williams combined to blow the save in the 8th. The Padres discouragingly took a 4-3 lead in the 9th but the Giants TIED the game in the bottom of the inning on a Willie Mac pinch hit HR off Rollie Fingers (seriously, I am having a freaking BALL writing the names of all these players 🙂 ). They won it in the 10th off Fingers, not sure how, all that’s listed is that the winning run scored with 2 outs. Oscar Gamble in right field for the Padres? That is about as old school as it gets. He had 4 hits in the game. The Pads catcher was named Rick Sweet. That’s a rad name…….

I tried to get jazzed up about a “lincecum long term deal” thread but I just couldn’t make it happen. I had a revenue-sharing thing goin’ but it fizzled. I’ve got a little Big Game on the Brain but not enough to write about it here…..

I’ll tell you, I could get stuck in those old box scores from the 70’s and 80’s for hours. The names of those players, not just Giants but the player from other teams too, are burned into my memories of reading the old box scores back when the Green was just green because it was a cool, quirky look not because it was a retro marketing angle the way it is today. Free agency just hadn’t taken over the way it has the last 10-15 years or so. Back then, it wasn’t just a player’s stats I was connecting to but also his team and the countless battles I would live and die with as I listened to the games on my digital clock radio. Sometimes I’d be lucky enough to find the game televised on KTVU where Gary Park’s sweet tan was the staple of the pre-game show……

So right now, in the middle of freaking November with nothing Giants-related or relevant on the hot stove, I am more inclined to pour over the box scores from ’78 than I am to read the latest updates at mlbtraderumors.com. Today’s retro-game was one that I attended. I remember it clearly, my dad too me to this game. Sunday Giants/Dodgers game 5/28/78. Sutton vs The Count. I swear to God, it seemed like Sutton pitched about 88% of the Dodger/Giant games in the 70’s. Anyway, we had pretty bad seats, waaaaaay out in right field as high as the steps would go (San Dawg would have loved those seats 🙂 ) When the teams got announced (or maybe it was his first at bat I can’t remember) and the announcer said”…Don Sutton” a loud, long boo began. I decided to top that by yelling out “Kill Sutton!”. I think I might have even yelled it twice. My dad was less than cool with this break from the socially accepted booing that everyone else was doing. He gave me a look that said “I kill YOU” if you don’t STFU. I remember feeling terribly embarrassed for many reasons.

The game was amazing. Mike Ivie hit a pinch hit grand slam to help them win it. The fans went insane that day, it sounded like there were 500,000 people screaming when he hit that home run. Great day. Here were the starting line ups:

It looks like this is a done deal with mlb making the sale to Crane contingent on the ‘stros moving to the American League (in 2013). If I was a fan of their team I’d be bummed because most longtime NL fans don’t like the AL game and vice versa. It usually just comes down to the designated hitter rule which I’ll get to in a moment…

With the Astros moving to the AL West we would have a balanced 15/15 in each league. And while I’m not sure why, this would apparently mean we would have inter league  games year round instead of just the customary blocks of the season that we usually get.

And I think all of this is leading to a fairly significant rule change in the next few years: the uniformity of the designated hitter rule in both leagues. First of all, it is kind of stupid that there is such a major rule difference in each league. When the AFC plays the NFC in the Super Bowl there isn’t any fundamental major differences between the way the two teams are forced to play the game during the regular season. In the NBA championship, it’s not like the Western Conference shoots from a different 3 point distance than the Eastern Conference does.

But in the World Series, one team is at a significant disadvantage in every game. Either the AL has to sit there DH player or the NL is forced to play with one, something they don’t have to do at any point in the season (besides the few interleague games they might have played in an AL park). This is stupid. Why wouldn’t you want the season’s most important games to be played under the same circumstances that the teams played in for almost 162+ games? Wouldn’t that be the best way to determine who is the better team?

And I don’t want to hear about “baseball purity.” We’ve had so many changes to the game over the last 30 years that it’s impossible to defend keeping baseball the way it once was. Simply put, the way it once was isn’t that way anymore. Besides, the DH rule has only been around since 1973, it’s not like we’ve had 100 years of these imbalanced World Series match ups…….

I really don’t care if they change to all-DH or No-DH. But the players union would never go for ditching the DH so that really leaves only one option–make it all-DH in both leagues. While I think it would take a little while to get used to, I’m certain all the NL fans would get over it soon enough. And then we would have a fair match up in the World Series, something that just makes sense……..

Below is a new off season feature–the “Retro Game of the Day”. I’m starting in ’78 and will cherry pick games from this year going forward until Spring Training. I’d put the entire box score in but I haven’t figured out how to shrink it to fit in this space so for right now you just get starting line ups and a quick blurb by me as a summary. Kinda fun to go back to the good ‘ol days and this is about as  far back as my good ‘ol days go as ’78 was the first team I remember really getting into as a young fan……

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

6/21/1978–A night game at the ‘Stick, Haliki pitched a complete game 3-0 shut out. The Giants did all their damage in the bottom of the 4th when Metzger doubled in McCovey and Clark. Dwyer scored later that inning on a Marc Hill FC. Giants ran their record to 42-23……

After the Phillies forked over way too much dough to Paplebon and potentially Cuddyer and Oswalt, I’ve had this mini fantasy that there won’t be much left over for J-Roll and he’d leave them in a huff to return to his Bay Area homeland. I don’t think anyone, including the Phillies, will offer him more than a 3 year deal, maybe 40 million or so. But I’ve gotten further away from that dream as I’ve looked in more detail at the long term plan Sabean has for that position.

The fact is, Sabean has set the position up nicely for years to come. Three of our best options are Crawford (24, drafted in the 4th rd 2008), Ehire Adrianza (signed not drafted in 2006) and Joe Panik (drafted out of St John’s in rd 1 of the June Amateur draft in 2011). They’ve all shown promise and one of those guys should be able to take over SS for us in the next 0-2 years. Adrianza has been kinda fiddling around in the low minors until this last year. He’s had an all-glove/no hit label like a lot of SS until he hit .300 at San Jose this year. Curiously he stopped running, he stole 33 bases in 2010 vs only 5 last year in about half the number of at bats. But he got nailed 15 times in ’10 so maybe he just decided to stop being so reckless. Still, hitting .300 at San Ho doesn’t mean much since most of the pitchers in that league are down there throwing heat and not much else. If you’ve got a quality breaking pitch you can go to the next level but most of the pitchers down there, as I said, are throwing straight balls that is preferred by most low-level hitters. Still, .300 isn’t a BAD thing, let’s just see him do it at the next  level.

Panik is a guy who’s only 21 but he’s begun his profession as he played at St John’s. He’s torn up Salem-Keizer and he’s doing the same in the AFL. So far, this guy is showing he’s got hitting .300 down pat. We’ll see how he progresses through the system but this is a guy who has hit at every level he’s ever been at, something the other 2 guys can’t say…….

Crawford is a tough one. Does anyone LOOK more like a ball player than Crawford? He’s a hometown guy. Looks like he has the perfect body to play the game. And then he swings and….underwhelming results. He’s going to be 25 in January so it needs to start happening for him quickly. He’s hitting .296 in the AFL. Not bad but nothing that you can bank on translating into anything in SF next year….

While I was disappointed to see Sabean offer Willie Bloomquist a 2 year deal, I understand that the market for free agent SS’s sucks this year. I really don’t want to give someone like Barmes or Santiago a 2 year deal though I think that’s what they’ll get somewhere. It all comes back to what I said yesterday. The best idea is to lock Keppy up for a year in arbitration, give the gig to Crawford in 2012 and hope he can hit enough to justify having his glove in the line up. Actually, Barmes makes a modicum of sense if it’s not Keppy since he can also play 2nd base. He can fill in for Freddy when he’s DL-bound……..

I’m pretty much done with all the Sandusky talk. Did you know he has written a book called “Touched”. No, that’s not a joke. Here it is on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/77mbvms

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And I am leaving the Niner talk to Chuck for now though I could say something every day about this amazing team. I’m hoping Gore doesn’t play at all this week. There’s no reason for him to, heal up and get ready for the big H-Showdown on Thanksgiving….

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I was surprised to see that Sabean offered Willie Bloomquist a 2 year deal worth 4.6 million. He actually took $800,000 less to remain with Arizona. We dodged a bullet there, *Bloomy* is painfully underwhelming. Since that qualifies as going after him aggressively (and it has to right? We offered 800K more than AZ did) then I am assuming Sabean isn’t going to offer Keppinger arbitration (although that is a loose assumption). To me though, that is the thing you do. Lock him up for a year at 3.4 mil or whatever and then have him ready to back up Franchez when he hits the DL and Crawford if he proves he can’t hit mlb pitching.

Sabes could still go after one of the “underwhelmers” like Barmes or Santiago. But I hope he doesn’t do that since signing either of them would probably cost you at least a two year deal and I don’t want to have to watch either of those guys in an SF uni for 2 complete seasons. I know Kepp only hit .255 for us but he went into a deep slump after he got hurt in Houston and I think his wrist (or hand) was the thing that didn’t allow him to hit his customary *soft* .300. But our LU needs all the .300 hitter it can get and I am 93.674% positive that at least one of our middle infielders, probably for different reasons, will need to be replaced for long stretches of the 2012 season…..

Not too many other relevant hot stove items for us to kick around at this point in the season. Time for me to replace the BB………

I left *football* out of the headline because I think Harbaugh could coach just about any sport he chose to. What is this guy doing that translates into this type of amazing success? He show up at the University of San Diego, a floundering non-football, non-sport program and turns them into a back to back 11-1 team. He turns the Cardinal into a national powerhouse after  Teevens and Harris threatened to turn the program into the football version of The Titanic. And in his first season with the Niners he’s got them to 8-1 after years and years of failed expectations and bad overall records.

Of course, his greatest trick of all has been to turn Alex Smith into an elite quarterback…..

When he’s getting interviewed by the media I think Harbaugh would rather be doing just about anything else. He looks stiff and his answers are vague and often indirect jabs at the media. It almost feels like he’s playing a game with them and he’s the only one playing the game.

When he was coaching Stanford I had an opportunity to be part of a group that ate lunch with him at the Kiwanis Club in Palo Alto. He started off  fairly guarded, choosing every word carefully. He almost seemed nervous. But after 10 minutes or so he loosened up and couldn’t  have been any cooler. He would follow up any questions we had for him with a thoughtful answer and then what appeared to be a genuine question for us. For instance, when I asked him for an example of what he might do differently than Harris (this lunch was right after he was hired to coach Stanford) he answered and then asked me why I thought the program had been failing for so many years. By the end of the lunch I was transfixed on this man, listening to each word carefully. I gave a lot of *knowing dude head nods*. Despite his inexperience with a big time program I was certain he was the right coach for the Cardinal….

I think a lot of what I experienced at that lunch translates into him being a good football coach. He commands respect with his presence. He comes across as completely genuine. And he has a quality that I think a lot of coaches don’t have: an interest in other people’s perspectives. I’m guessing he takes feedback from the players and his assistant coaches and uses that in his coaching and decision making.

A big part of motivation is keeping your interest on a defined goal. Harbaugh has managed to coalesce this group of *mighty men* into a common mindset that seems to be some sort of combination of “believing in them/us vs the world/keeping them focused game-to-game”.  That sounds basic but it can’t be or everyone would be doing it. He’s reacting to the team’s needs on a moment to moment basis. We see that in his “Freddy P Soft” stories. They sound corny but he really believes that stuff and his players obviously buy into it. He doesn’t seem to ever be happy or content with where he is today but rather what he has to do to keep the team focused and motivated for where he wants to be tomorrow. And I think he rolls out of bed every morning with this as the cornerstone of coaching technique.

Whatever it is, I think it’s something that wouldn’t be easy to duplicate. The way he coaches is tied directly to who he is as a man and I think everyone would agree that he’s a unique individual. I feel so fortunate to have had him as the head coach for my two favorite football teams. Being a 49er fan is fun again……

I don’t want to get into another debate about how valuable a good closer is. I know what the argument is against the value of a good closer. I take the other side, I don’t think enough weight is given to the psychological make up of the closer and the different circumstance the 9th inning presents compared to other innings.

What are the 3 most important things you need to be an elite closer? 1) a great K/inning ratio. 2) a great K/bb ratio. 3) a short memory. Sergio Romo had one of the greatest seasons you could ever have in terms of predicting success as a future stud closer— 70K’s, 5bb’s. That’s absurd. That’s Dennis Eckersley CY territory. But Romo would be a mess as a closer, by his own admission. If he blew a save he’d be up all night lamenting it. That won’t work…….

Actually, a lot of guys have proven they can do the job. For a short period of time. Pitchers thrown into the roll (like Motte, for instance) can go on a nice run if they start off successful. It’s the bumps in the road that will determine if they can be elite or not. LaRussa didn’t turn to Motte till August as the closer and he had an awful nice run, all the way through the playoffs. It’s possible that he’s found himself the real-deal. But I am not sold, let’s see him do it for a full season. LaRussa’s no dummy, there’s a reason he turned to 3-4 other guys before he settled on Motte out of necessity……

That brings me to the Phillies and the 4 (potentially 5) year deal they just gave Papelbon. S-T-U-P-I-D signing. ‘Pap has had a very nice career as a closer. He was actually originally projected to be a starter but was thrown into the roll as a rookie and he really hasn’t looked back. But there have been warning signs before his bounce back season in 2011. 2010 was not a good year for him. And last year didn’t end so hot, the last time we saw ‘Pap he was blowing a save to the Orioles in spectacular fashion on the now famous September 28th, the day baseball went insane.

For that he gets a potential 5 year deal? Are the Phillies crazy? They just got burned finishing off paying Lidge for 3 years of sub par work. At least Papelbon has proved he can stay healthy. But 5 years is an eternity for a closer unless your name is Mariano Rivera (and Joe Nathan, before his injury in 2010 and uninspiring comeback 2011).

I wouldn’t ever give a closer, I don’t care who he is, a deal longer than 2 years. As Papelbon enters his 30’s I predict that there is virtually no way he makes it through that deal without an injury and/or losing his job due to a streak of intolerable gas can appearances…….

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How does the network broadcast today’s Penn St/Nebraska game? Do they show all the protests? What protests get shown? The ones defending the pedophile-supporting Paterno? Or the ones denouncing the molestation? How will the actual game play out? Nebraska has been swept up into a tornado. And the Penn State kids couldn’t have gotten much sleep last night. I wish that the NCAA had done the right thing and canceled the rest of the Penn State season. Their failure to respond or even make a statement regarding this unfortunate, sad, firestorm shows a black hole of leadership on their part. I guess they’re too busy busting players getting free tattoos. Horrible response (or lack of one) by the NCAA on all of this……

I’m trying to get amped up about a baseball story, I really am. There just isn’t much there to *amp* about. Does anyone really care where Yoenis Cespedes lands? I would love for him to become a Giant but that’s not happening. I’ll tell you one thing about that dude, he needs to tone down his post-HR behavior. He watches every single one of his bombs for like 3 seconds, or more. That will get him some bruised ribs if he tries to pull that crap in the major leagues…..

I went running very early this morning over at Stanford. I used to run the football stadium before they remodeled it. Now I run the tennis stadium–it’s not nearly as long but it’s steep, straight up. When you get to the top and look south you’re looking into the office windows of all the university coaches. It’s maybe 100 feet away, you can see them in there working away. It was before 6am and this morning there was just a single light on. I couldn’t help but wonder if Stanford’s version of Sandusky was in that office that morning, committing a similar crime. Why not? If a tragedy like that could happen at Penn State it could happen anywhere. This entire affair has ruined the way I look at college sports. Of course, I’ve always known about the dark side of college football–shady recruiting tactics, paying players, etc. But who could imagine that it was this dark, this disturbing?

Trip on this: If they could get past the morality issue on something like this and hide it for 13 years, what else have they had no problem sweeping under the rug? I think it might be time to change the “Success with Honor” football motto, don’t you?

It should be an interesting game this Saturday in Unhappy Valley. I wasn’t going to watch it, and probably will only tape it at most, but I do want to see how the players play this week. I’ve got no sympathy for them, they gave Paterno a standing ovation when he addressed them this week. I would like to see just one player stand up and quit the team over this. That might be asking too much from student athletes who are on scholarship. But a standing O for Paterno? That was *too much* too…..

There is some good that will come from all this, eventually. Parents won’t be so stupid from now on and just hand their kids over to adults without thinking first. You’re having my son sleep over in your basement? You want to take my 10 year old son to the gym to work out at 9pm? Say what???? Maybe there are kids being abused right now who hear this story and find the courage to tell someone. Maybe the sickos doing this see this story and decide to stop for fear of getting busted the same way Sandusky did. Our society isn’t doing enough to protect children from this kind of stuff. And clearly, society needs to step up and do something since the care givers aren’t doing shit to protect them from these monsters……

I’m glad that some of you appreciated the thread I posted yesterday afternoon and I was fine with the Penn St posts after several hours of abstaining from the topic. And the Rick Perry video had me LQTM as I sipped my coffee this morning. I still haven’t turned on the news or looked at any other website this am. I can’t really bring myself to watch the Penn St kids, blinded by their idealistic naivete, rioting around their campus and their fallen hero. I remember being at a Christmas dinner with extended family back in the late 80’s and I was spouting off a bunch of bullshit I’d learned in school in response to something one of my uncle’s had said. The debate got pretty heated, I kept blathering away the defined box of information I had learned in my political science class that quarter. Finally, my uncle, a self-made extremely successful man, said calmly, “Craig, let’s have this discussion in 10 years after you’ve lived your life outside of Lewis and Clark.” Despite his calm tone he sounded like a condescending asshole and all this did was infuriate me more but he refused to go on with the argument.

Of course, he was right. Higher education is a wonderful way to blow off the top of the box of what you thought you knew growing up, what you were told to believe  as a child. But it has it’s flip side and living in your own little world, no matter how evolved and educated, still leaves you with major gaps in your understanding of the real world–the world everyone else is living in while you are getting your spiffy diploma and brand new perspective on life.

So before I watch the videos of these kids I wanted to remind myself of where they are today in their lives. They take classes that equip them with much more current information than any of us have, it would be ignorant to deny that fact. But the little world they live in has shuffled common sense to the back of their brain. Ten years from now they’ll see how stupid they were last night and feel ashamed about it………

I might have to read a few more baseball passages today. Is there any sport that is written more poetically than baseball? Think about it, it’s not even close. Can you imagine someone writing the way Giamatti did about football? Baseball prose is the quickest and easiest way to take me back to being a kid. And it’s amazing, you get taken back to only the good things you remember about being a kid. Despite my brain telling me that it wasn’t that idyllic,  my life as a child had it’s share of terrible moments. And yet, I read a piece like “The Green Fields of the Mind” and all I can remember is the best childhood anyone ever had.

If any of you have some good baseball books or passages you’d like to share, please do so in this thread. I have a feeling my blood is going to boil over certain current events today and I’m gonna need something to balance me back to baseline………

I stole Twin’s header for this one. I’m tired of all the negative stuff in the news right now. It’s all disgusting and awful to think about and, frankly, I need a break from it. So, I went back and read one of my favorite writings about the game that I’ve always gone to when I need to block out something negative in my life. Most of you have probably read this, it’s by A. Bartlett Giamatti. Please, no Penn State posts on this thread……

“The Green Fields of the Mind ”

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.

Somehow, the summer seemed to slip by faster this time. Maybe it wasn’t this summer, but all the summers that, in this my fortieth summer, slipped by so fast. There comes a time when every summer will have something of autumn about it. Whatever the reason, it seemed to me that I was investing more and more in baseball, making the game do more of the work that keeps time fat and slow and lazy. I was counting on the game’s deep patterns, three strikes, three outs, three times three innings, and its deepest impulse, to go out and back, to leave and to return home, to set the order of the day and to organize the daylight. I wrote a few things this last summer, this summer that did not last, nothing grand but some things, and yet that work was just camouflage. The real activity was done with the radio–not the all-seeing, all-falsifying television–and was the playing of the game in the only place it will last, the enclosed green field of the mind. There, in that warm, bright place, what the old poet called Mutability does not so quickly come.

But out here, on Sunday, October 2, where it rains all day, Dame Mutability never loses. She was in the crowd at Fenway yesterday, a gray day full of bluster and contradiction, when the Red Sox came up in the last of the ninth trailing Baltimore 8-5, while the Yankees, rain-delayed against Detroit, only needing to win one or have Boston lose one to win it all, sat in New York washing down cold cuts with beer and watching the Boston game. Boston had won two, the Yankees had lost two, and suddenly it seemed as if the whole season might go to the last day, or beyond, except here was Boston losing 8-5, while New York sat in its family room and put its feet up. Lynn, both ankles hurting now as they had in July, hits a single down the right-field line. The crowd stirs. It is on its feet. Hobson, third baseman, former Bear Bryant quarterback, strong, quiet, over 100 RBIs, goes for three breaking balls and is out. The goddess smiles and encourages her agent, a canny journeyman named Nelson Briles.

Now comes a pinch hitter, Bernie Carbo, onetime Rookie of the Year, erratic, quick, a shade too handsome, so laid-back he is always, in his soul, stretched out in the tall grass, one arm under his head, watching the clouds and laughing; now he looks over some low stuff unworthy of him and then, uncoiling, sends one out, straight on a rising line, over the center-field wall, no cheap Fenway shot, but all of it, the physics as elegant as the arc the ball describes.

New England is on its feet, roaring. The summer will not pass. Roaring, they recall the evening, late and cold, in 1975, the sixth game of the World Series, perhaps the greatest baseball game played in the last fifty years, when Carbo, loose and easy, had uncoiled to tie the game that Fisk would win. It is 8-7, one out, and school will never start, rain will never come, sun will warm the back of your neck forever. Now Bailey, picked up from the National League recently, big arms, heavy gut, experienced, new to the league and the club; he fouls off two and then, checking, tentative, a big man off balance, he pops a soft liner to the first baseman. It is suddenly darker and later, and the announcer doing the game coast to coast, a New Yorker who works for a New York television station, sounds relieved. His little world, well-lit, hot-combed, split-second-timed, had no capacity to absorb this much gritty, grainy, contrary reality.

Cox swings a bat, stretches his long arms, bends his back, the rookie from Pawtucket who broke in two weeks earlier with a record six straight hits, the kid drafted ahead of Fred Lynn, rangy, smooth, cool. The count runs two and two, Briles is cagey, nothing too good, and Cox swings, the ball beginning toward the mound and then, in a jaunty, wayward dance, skipping past Briles, feinting to the right, skimming the last of the grass, finding the dirt, moving now like some small, purposeful marine creature negotiating the green deep, easily avoiding the jagged rock of second base, traveling steady and straight now out into the dark, silent recesses of center field.

The aisles are jammed, the place is on its feet, the wrappers, the programs, the Coke cups and peanut shells, the doctrines of an afternoon; the anxieties, the things that have to be done tomorrow, the regrets about yesterday, the accumulation of a summer: all forgotten, while hope, the anchor, bites and takes hold where a moment before it seemed we would be swept out with the tide. Rice is up. Rice whom Aaron had said was the only one he’d seen with the ability to break his records. Rice the best clutch hitter on the club, with the best slugging percentage in the league. Rice, so quick and strong he once checked his swing halfway through and snapped the bat in two. Rice the Hammer of God sent to scourge the Yankees, the sound was overwhelming, fathers pounded their sons on the back, cars pulled off the road, households froze, New England exulted in its blessedness, and roared its thanks for all good things, for Rice and for a summer stretching halfway through October. Briles threw, Rice swung, and it was over. One pitch, a fly to center, and it stopped. Summer died in New England and like rain sliding off a roof, the crowd slipped out of Fenway, quickly, with only a steady murmur of concern for the drive ahead remaining of the roar. Mutability had turned the seasons and translated hope to memory once again. And, once again, she had used baseball, our best invention to stay change, to bring change on.

That is why it breaks my heart, that game–not because in New York they could win because Boston lost; in that, there is a rough justice, and a reminder to the Yankees of how slight and fragile are the circumstances that exalt one group of human beings over another. It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised.

Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.

Bochy was on the radio pledging his allegiance to Barry Zito as the #5 next year. I love Boch but I don’t believe much of what he says to the press. It’s possible Sabean could go with a “Suppan” to compete with Zito in Spring Training but that is a low % shot in the dark. Finding a *Voggy* happens once every 10 years (or more) so if he goes that route and calls it *competition* then I think we need to get ready for a month of Zito before he hits the DL again—the obvious new plan for the Giants as they ride out the rest of this contract.

What if they went out and signed a legitimate #5 this Winter? The problem with that is that those players are pretty expensive. There is a much greater need on other teams to pay for pitching to fill out a rotation. And we have been spoiled with such great pitching I don’t think we  are ready to deal with a multi-year deal with the “Edwin Jackson’s” of the league.

Roy Oswalt? Please, that is a total pipe dream. I’d sign him on a 1-year deal in a nano-second. But he is going to get a multi-year deal and it’s going to be for a lot of money. He’ll get 3 years, probably 40 million, something like that. No thanks……

And I wouldn’t think Sabean should or would sign a type A  guy but maybe  a Type B.

I’m going to re-post a list from mlbtraderumors.com. I believe it’s updated but haven’t checked so correct me if it’s wrong and I’ll take it down:

Starting pitchers
Erik Bedard (33)
Mark Buehrle (33) – Type B
Chris Capuano (33)
Bruce Chen (35) – Type B
Wei-Yin Chen (26)
Bartolo Colon (39)
Aaron Cook (33)
Kyle Davies (28)
Doug Davis (36)
Zach Duke (29)
Jeff Francis (30)
Armando Galarraga (30)
Freddy Garcia (36) – Type B
Jon Garland (32)
Aaron Harang (34) – Type B
Rich Harden (30)
Livan Hernandez (37)
Hisashi Iwakuma (31)
Edwin Jackson (28) – Type B
Hiroki Kuroda (37) – Type B
Rodrigo Lopez (36)
Paul Maholm (30)
Jason Marquis (33)
Kevin Millwood (37)
Sergio Mitre (31)
Roy Oswalt (34) – Type A
Brad Penny (34)
Joel Pineiro (33)
Mitch Talbot (28)
Javier Vazquez (35)
Tsuyoshi Wada (31)
Tim Wakefield (45)
Brandon Webb (33)
Dontrelle Willis (30)
C.J. Wilson (31) – Type A
Chris Young (33)

Whether it’s because I’m spoiled by our pitching staff or the fact that I wouldn’t ever allow one of these guys on one of my fantasy league teams, I am underwhelmed and uninspired by free agent pitchers like this. But we do have a yard that a guy from this list would WANT to pitch in. Come to SF on a 1-year deal and re-start their careers or put up a nice season that they could parlay into a multi-year deal in 2013. Most of these guys get injured a lot, too. I would totally take a swing at Bedard or Harden except for the fact that they are extreme pussies who treat the DL like a mid-season trip to Cabo. After scrolling up and down this list at least 7 times, I guess I could tolerate Capauno or Chen in a Giants uniform and manage not to throw up when I signed them.

But that’s about it. Hmmmm. Maybe going with a “Welly” or a Suppy” is the better plan after all…….

I was caught off guard, as most of you were, with this trade yesterday. I did find it fairly ironic that a “Sanchez thread” popped into my head yesterday morning at 5am. No clue where that was coming from but it did turn out to be a slick topic a few hours later. My first reaction was a negative one because I wasn’t impressed with him during his mediocre Yankee career (I watch a lot of Yankee games and he just sorta fumbled his way through his stay there). Then there was the horrible Braves stint. That’s when he got crossed off my “fantasy watch list”. Then he goes out and scores 102 runs playing for the Royals. Actually, that’s not so unbelievable. The Royals have some very good hitters in the middle of their line up, players I had on a few of my teams last year–Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon–these guys can rake. I didn’t stop to notice they were driving in Cabrera all season long (well, Butler and Hosmer were, Gordon usually batted lead off). I was shocked to see that Melky banged out out 44 doubles and 5 triples. He had 201 hits. Will Clark, my favorite Giant of all time, never had 200 hits…..

So when I wrote pessimistically that the Giants wouldn’t trade Dirrrtry because his value was so low I really meant they SHOULDN’T do it because you don’t trade something when it’s value is at it’s lowest, you trade it when it’s at it’s highest. Of course I was disappointed to see that they had actually DONE IT and traded for *low value* Melky Cabrera who, in the immediate moment after the trade, I had known, or at least believed,  to have sucked. Then I looked at his season and I was still disappointed because they had used Sanchez to buy a *one season wonder*. After looking at it closer, I then decided this wasn’t a 1-season wonder at all but a trade for an outfielder that is better than any outfielder we have (hitter) and found several reasons to believe he could easily repeat his 2011 season.

1) He’s only 27

2) He’s in a contract year

3) (and this is the big one): He realized he was fat and out of shape after his season with the Braves. Sound like anyone we know? A common falsehood: major league baseball players are out of shape. Certainly you can find the one-off guys who appear fat but can still succeed at the highest level–Sabathia and Heath Bell come to mind. But most of those on that short list are pitchers. Not too many are hitters. And none of them are outfielders. So if Melky looked himself in the mirror last December and said “I’m fat and out of shape” and he decides to do something about it and then goes out and has that type of season. Hey, he’s 27 years old. I’m on board, his 2011 season could be the real-deal……

Sabean confirmed that this was really the only deal out there once he started dangling Dirrrrty. And if this was all that was out there, I am giving Sabes 2 flaps up for pulling this off. I was surprised to read that Sanchez basically gave up on the season after his sprained ankle. Sabean suggested in his press conference that he didn’t want to or didn’t try hard enough to come back and pitch after that. If that’s true, Bochy kept that in the clubhouse last Fall, as he should have. He just kept telling reporters that the ankle wasn’t responding the way they had hoped, he’s not ready yet, yada yada. While the general fan didn’t know what was really going on I’m assuming that this news leaked out to other teams and probably had an impact on the interest level for him. All the more reason why we should be happy that our one trade target was someone like Melky. This would be the equivalent of putting your house on the market at a price above what it’s worth and still getting a buyer to come in and pay the list price. Put another way, if you are a seller and you aren’t getting multiple offers and you only have one buyer you have no leverage. No WAY do you get your list price. Hey, in this case Sabean got his list price. And we might likely find out next year that Sabean got the Royals to bid WAY ABOVE the list price. For only having a single possible buyer, that’s pretty cool….

Take a look at Melky’s hit chart at home last year:

He’s a switch hitter so the fact that he sprays the ball all over the chart isn’t surprising at first but it is worth noting that there isn’t at least a few quadrants in the outfield that he regularly hits the ball to. This tells me that he’s going to eat up the ATT outfield with hits. There is just too much space and not enough good collective defensive outfields that are going to be able to shut this guy down at the plate. As long as he doesn’t get “homer-happy” I think we can expect a repeat of his 2011 and who wouldn’t take that in exchange for Dirrrty’s inconsistencies and, what we learned yesterday, was a *hesitation* to play after he got hurt last Summer……….

Of course, the answer is unknown. You can have an opinion, a theory, a guess….But what Sanchez does next year is likely up to the baseball Gods. Personally, I think he needs a change of scenery, preferably (for him) to a low-stress town like Seattle or Kansas City, something like that. He could probably use a fresh start. New uni, new pitching coach voice in his head, new fans who aren’t pulling their hair out over his inconsistencies. He’d probably embrace a fresh start…….

But that isn’t going to happen…….

J-Sanch is ours next year. Nobody is trading for him when his value is at it’s lowest and Sabean would be a fool to unload him when his stock is so low. And as was pointed out by Michael on the last thread, he really is the only thing that is keeping Zito out of the starting 5 next season– that reason alone  is why he’s more valuable to us than what any other team would trade to get him.

Even without a fresh start with a new team, there is reason to be hopeful about Dirrrrty’s 2012. I’ve got no idea what he’s doing to prepare for next season, I don’t think he’s playing Winter ball anywhere. He’s probably best just relaxing and working out, continuing to heal his body and cleanse his mind of the negativity from last year. I think the one thing he is going to HAVE to do is take a different tactical approach to pitching. Hitters seem to be taking the approach of “if I can’t hit his stuff I will let it go by, work the count in my favor and either walk or hope for a hittable pitch late in the count.” That is countered quite easily by throwing more strikes early in the count, stealing first pitch strikes with breaking balls, stuff like that.

It’s also entirely possible that he’s trying to do that, he just has no command of his pitches. But I don’t think that’s it. When I look at him on the mound I see a guy who is too consumed, almost overwhelmed, with thinking about his mechanics and how he wants to pitch to a batter. He makes pitching just so…..hard. It probably isn’t as simple as to advise him to “Stop thinking so much and just go have fun out there.” He doesn’t look like a guy who has a personality that leans toward light and loose. But he’s got some of the best stuff in the game and he needs to let that stuff take over and stop doing WHATEVER it is he’s doing on the mound when he puts a couple of guys on base or when he can’t throw strikes for a inning or two which seemed to happen almost every game last year.

Dennis brought up the “Dirrrrty for Jose Reyes” possible trade again. He asked again, “would you do it?” Again, the answer is *no*. Of course the Mets wouldn’t have done that deal. If they took our BEST pitching prospect for Beltran, what do you think they would have wanted for a super star in his prime? But that isn’t the reason *I* wouldn’t have done it. Reyes is a free agent who will command 100-130 million dollars this Winter. No way IN HELL the Giants would have signed him this year. You don’t hand over a legitimate MLB starting pitcher who is still under team control for a 2 month rental player. And I don’t think that if we had made that deal we would have made the playoffs. Reyes gets on base and makes crazy things happen when he’s on the bases. But we still didn’t have  anyone to drive him in. Of course, it’s an unknown what would have happened since it never happened, but I don’t think he was enough to get us over the top last year.

Wherever Dirrrrrty is right now, I hope he’s resting comfortably and finding some peace of mind. He deserves it and could use it. At least he doesn’t have to enter the year with the burden of being the #2. In hindsight, he probably could have done without that pressure. After he disposes of Zito in whatever farce of a competition he’s in with him this Spring, he can enter the 2012 season with a fresh opportunity for success. Whenever I see him on the mound, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes (from Blade): “You either make yourself miserable, or you make yourself happy. The amount of work is the same.” How great would it be for Sanchez if he made that HIS favorite quote?

Breeders Cup….Cardinal…’Bama/LSU….Niners…..Raiders….in that order…..

And very little baseball to discuss. I read Cuddyer might be headed to Philly. That does nothing for me…….

Enjoy your weekend. I’m off to start the day with single digit hours remaining till first post…….

Judging by the poll results, most of you would sign Crisp to start and have Vungo waiting in the wings. I’m on board with that. I think Torres, minus the expectations he had last year, could *revert* back to the guy who banged out 43 doubles in 2010. THAT GUY would be better than any free agent outfielder on the current market except maybe Beltran. But of course, we can’t assume that Torres will turn back to be that guy. Between the two of them though, it’s reasonable to expect that you get something much improved out of what that position gave us last year……..

And I would love to get Beltran on a 3 year deal, and I suppose it is at least possible. But this guy has fired Boras, he has something up his sleeve, and I don’t think it’s to come back to San Francisco, a place that his body language appeared to dislike. If we did somehow find a way to sign Beltran, I would also sign Willingham to play left field. Then I’d sign Vungo on the super cheap–that stud defense hasn’t gone anywhere, he can protect those two in the outfield and MAYBE with reduced expectations he will find his long lost bat, too……

But make no mistake, we can’t bring back all the same guys, bet on a bunch of *maybe will reverts* and expect that the return of Franchez and Posey will  fix this offense. Think back to 2010, who made this offense work?  In addition to Posey and Franchez, it was Torres, Huff, Uribe, Burrell, and Ross. Those are FIVE (5) guys who aren’t with us literally and figuratively anymore. And it isn’t just the actual players this line up misses, it’s the chemistry of it. Sabean CANNOT stand pat and bring all the same guys back hoping that Franny/Posey fix this thing………

It wouldn’t surprise me if one of these 3 guys is playing center field for us next year. All 3 have pluses and minuses. Crisp gives you a leadoff presence and a guy who could steal you 30-40 bases if he stays healthy (his big minus). Sizemore is the biggest gamble, a guy who almost went 40/40 back in 2007 but injuries have derailed his career–he is reportedly healthy but for how long? DeJesus is a guy I don’t really like that much–little power and little speed. But he’s good defensively and if you subscribe to the theory that most A’s free agent pick ups turn to sh!t upon signing (it’s not all of them but a lot of them) then you throw out DeJesus’ 2011 and hope he bounces back to pre-A’s form. He’s probably a lot more likely to stay healthy than the other 2, too.

What about Vungo? It couldn’t really get much worse for Torres than it did last year. And it’s not like he’s brimming with confidence right now. But he would be the cheaper than any of those 3 and his upside of 2010 is better than Crisp and DeJesus for sure. Probably not Sizemore if you think he’s healthy again. What if you signed Crisp AND Torres? I hope they don’t sign Crisp and Ross. I love Cody Ross for what he did in 2010 but in my opinion there’s a better chance that an unpressured Torres would have a better chance of bouncing back than Ross. Remember, Ross really only *brought it* for about 6 weeks. Torres did it ALL of 2010. Anyway, just something to kick around on a windy, cold day in the Bay………

The poll is what would YOU do, not what you think Sabean will do…..

I will send the results to Sabean at the end of the day and he will act accordingly……..

I don’t pay much attention to this award, just glanced at the results this morning. I think the winners are voted on by managers and coaches, not the players themselves. Everyone says it’s an award given to a player who has either won before or who has been an offensive force before–that would explain Beltran as one of the 3 options to vote on in right field. But Gerardo Parra won in left field? I didn’t think he was known outside of Arizona for much of anything. And yet he wins the left field gold glove. Polanco beats out Panda at 3rd base? I didn’t watch much of Polanco this year. He was hurt a lot and I’m sorry, but you can’t tell me he played a *golder* glove than Sandoval did this year. I’m assuming that the newer defensive stats (the UZR stuff) isn’t considered by the coaches. To tell you the truth, I don’t look much at that either since it doesn’t help me in fantasy baseball and, frankly, it can be difficult to translate into something meaningful. I’m assuming the coaches and managers just vote for the guy who made a spectacular play against them in the regular season. Again, I would be surprised if Polanco made more spectacular plays than Panda in 2011. He won a GG in ’07 and ’09 so that was probably enough for the voters–just keep punching out the holes you punched out in years passed. That’s a pretty dumb way to vote, isn’t it?

Maybe Schierholtz finally breaks through in 2012. He plays a full year injury free. He doesn’t just have the late inning hits but he finally fulfills his promise, hits .290 with 15 bombs and 20 stolen bags. Of course, there is the gold glove defense that’s always been there, the golden arm he uses to gun down would-be runners at every possible bag. The cat is finally out of the bag, and he guns that goddamn cat down, too. The national writers  finally take notice and he will win an award he really does richly deserve to win. Except he won’t win it, Andre Ethier will. Why? ‘Cause he won it in 2011. Dumb award……….

Congratulations to Tony LaRussa on a fine career. I suspect that if you thought Pujols was coming back to St Louis next year, instead of going to the Cubs, you wouldn’t be retiring…….

The Indians traded for Derek Lowe. I actually don’t think this was that horrible of a move despite Lowe’s declining win/ERA numbers. He’s a sinker baller who relies on the guys behind him to get to the ball (range) and field it cleanly. The Indians have decent corner defense but suspect defense up the middle with Cabrera and Kipnis so that could be a problem for Lowe. But with sinkerballers (and Lowe’s ground ball rate really hasn’t changed much over the last couple of years) luck and defensive positioning factor in big time. The Indians gave up nothing for him. It was a good gamble by them…….

Brandon Crawford is hitting .333 in the AFL after 11 games. That stat right there outta send Sabes to the ATM to had over another extension to another one of our pitchers. Can’t sign or extend enough of those guys, can he? Meanwhile, our outfield currently sits as one of the most impotent in the league, maybe in all of baseball history in terms of collective home runs produced………

CC Sabathia signed a deal to stay with the Yankees. I love CC, he’s a great pitcher and appears to be a great family man who is extremely active in his community. BUt that dude needs to drop some weight and keep it off. He’s 31, he’s gotten away with being fat up till now. But as he heads into his mid 30’s he’s going to struggle with success, especially later in the season. And “later in the season” is really all the Yankees care about.

I would LOVE to see Yu Darvish pitching for the Yankees—extreme entertainment. I hope they win the rights to negotiate with him….

Look, I like both of those guys and I recognize how important it is to have a solid bullpen. But both of them (especially Lopez) are basically just lefty specialists. I am assuming that Sabean is working within some framework of a budget. And with SO MANY slots to fill on offense (at LEAST one outfielder, a shortstop, and a decent back up catcher) I just don’t think that the Giants can afford the luxury of having two of the most expensive pitching specialists out there.

Put another way, the 9.5 million they are spending on two guys who MIGHT pitch to 3 or 4 batters combined during a game, is now money that is diverted away from signing a free agent hitter who plays potentially 1400-1500 innings a year. And I’m not talking about this diverted money now not available for pipe dreams like Fielder and Reyes. Did we just price ourselves out of the Coco Crisp *Sweepstakes*? Probably not, but it’s clear to me now that Sabean is going to think all will be resolved with the return of Franchez and Posey. And that is risky at best and idiotic at worst.

It is just not realistic to think that Franny makes it through a full season without misplacing a body part or two (and looking for them on the DL). And there is NO guarantee that Busty will be back at full strength. Those types of injuries are complicated. The stud first baseman for the Angels (I can’t remember his name right now–the guy who broke his leg in early 2010 in a home plate celebration) missed the rest of 2010 and ALL of 2011 even though they said he would be back for 2011. My idea would have been to sign another legitimate major league catcher and have Buster play first base against lefties (with new-dude catching). That would take some pressure off his legs, something he will probably need in 2012. But I digress, I accepted a long time ago that Sabean isn’t interested in my ideas 🙂

Anyway, welcome to your new starting shortstop:  Brandon Crawford. Whatever shot we had at signing Rollins went out the window with the 9.5 million Sabean just handed over to a luxury we can’t afford……

That’s what some of these fringe Ranger players will be telling someone at a  bar in their hometown years from now. They’ll shake their head sideways and tell that story a million times hoping the ending somehow changes. “Bartender, one more round….”

Did you see how hard Nelson Cruz went for that Craig HR? Now THAT, dude, is how you’re supposed to go back on a ball. If he did that in Game 6 the Rangers would be Champions right now instead of the insufferable LaRussa’s. What is it about these goddamn Cruz’ in right field that fail so horribly at the worst possible times??????

And how about David Freese? While other Cards have WS MVP bonuses written into their 8 figure contracts, this dude just went out there and banged out more RBI’s than ANYONE in post season history. Amazing. His agent, the crafty and well known “Nez Balelo” scored him a $6,000 bonus after he was drafted by the Padres in 2006……..

The only guy as happy as a Cardinal this morning? Adam Meyer, the Vegas gambler who bet $100,000 on the Cardinals to win at 15-1 . http://www.covers.com/articles/articles.aspx?theArt=251367 . He ends up making more off that bet than every single one of the league minimum guys on the Cardinal’s roster……

He hedged his bets all the way through so the profit isn’t what it looks like. But still, well done on him. He runs a website called adamwins.com and he charges his VIP clients 10K a month for all his sports bets. 10K? I wouldn’t be *VIP* if I paid for that I’d be *DUI*…..

The bottom line for the Rangers is, they just couldn’t close the door. Each pitcher failed when given the chance to step up. Overall, their pitching was shady. Their staff collectively  issued the most walks for any world series ever. Can’t win when you’re handing out free passes all the time.  I still think Washington should own a lot of this. He seems like a great guy, roots and cheers like a fan every time they score a run, but the tactical side of managing is not his strength. Around the 7th inning or so I felt a genuine sorrow for him as he knelt on the dugout steps watching the inevitable unfold….

I read some of your posts last night about game 7 giving us “one more day to bask” and all that. To me, it’s never been about being the reigning champions. Maybe when the season first started it did, for a bit, but that quickly faded away. We have a spot in history that will live forever. “Supernova’s” usually last for about a month, but the one that set off inside my soul on 11/1/10 hasn’t come close to extinguishing. And it never will….

Alright, so who the Hell is Sabean gonna go get to fix his goddamn offense? 🙂 We now have about 4 full months of down time. I’ll turn my focus to finding the best bikini babes the internet has to offer. I’ll set up polls that, after Sabean reads the outcome, will likely determine the make up of the 2012 club. During a dark month we’ll probably all turn to Haiku for solace…..I don’t think I’m gonna do a retro-Giant thing again but I’ll find something, I always do. The Flap doesn’t take a break like the other slacker blogs, we go 24/7/365……

I find it rather amusing that the first World Series game (this year) that I watched from start to finish was last night’s game. I actaully had to turn it off after the 10th (life got in the way) but I got up early this am and watched the 11th…..

This box score is ridiculous.

Chuck might have had an easier time scoring in a whorehouse than either of those teams had in throwing up a shut down inning. Easy, I said *might*…..

This was NOT the best game I have ever seen. Any game with that many errors and miscues and horrible pitching can’t fall into a category of anything *best* unless you’re talking about *worst*. But in terms of excitement and clutch hitting from start to finish, that was the most exciting baseball game I have ever seen. I have been rooting half heartedly for Texas but I caught myself rooting for St Louis at least 3 times from the 7th inning on….

I found several of Washington’s moves questionable but none seemed to really backfire badly until the last inning. The only scenario that I can put together for why Feldman went to the on deck circle and then finally got pulled for German is this: Cruz had a noticeable limp coming off the field at the end of the 10th. I think Wash wanted to keep Feldman in the game but for some reason didn’t find out that Cruz was done until Feldman literally got announced in the on deck circle. Then he had to go with German. Pulling your last reliable reliever for your worst to get a pinch hitter into the game with 2 outs and a guy on FIRST BASE makes no sense at all. We’ll see what story gets told about that weird sequence………

If you’re David Freese you are waking up this morning a unique hero. A hometown dude, down to his last strike, saves the game in the 9th and then wins it in the 11th with a walk off bomb? That’s a cheesy, made up Hollywood movie……….