A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

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……….

I don’t know why I am trying to talk myself into believing that signing Grady Sizemore would be a good idea. But our outfield is so bad that it seems like a risk worth taking. And you’d probably have to go 2 years with him. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think his most recent surgery was related to the micro surgery he had 2 years ago. It always tough to predict how someone bounces back from micro surgery, it’s not like Tommy John or repairing and ACL. But it can easily take longer than a full year and if that ‘s the case then maybe Sizemore is ready for that bounce back year everyone thought he might have had last year. He’s only 29, this guy was a legit 40/40 threat just a couple of years ago. Run him through a complete physical, if he passes that I would be fine with signing him to play LF for us……

I’m assuming Bruce Jenkins was kidding when he said the Niners shouldn’t sign T.O. I mean, he hasn’t actual heard this is being discussed, has he? T.O needs money, that is the only reason he’s looking for a job right now and he knows he can’t afford to wait till next season as he turns 39 in December of next season. This would be “Chris Webber” all over again at least in terms of failed expectations. You can’t tell me that we don’t have a healthy receiver on the practice squad who isn’t better than TO at this point in his career. Not even Harbaugh has the hubris to pull this off with a straight face……..

After reading and re-reading LaRussa’s bizarre, unbelievable explanations for how the names “Rzepczynski”, “Lynn” and “Motte” get mixed up, I have to believe he is covering for someone. Either Duncan or Lilliquest. Hell, maybe Motte was in the bathroom or something. Who knows. But nothing about what he’s saying happened could have actually happened. And if he is covering for someone, what is the point? If someone else is responsible, why can’t they man up and field the tough questions? I understand WHY Tony is choosing to cover I just don’t understand why the guy responsible isn’t wanting to own any of this. Maybe he doesn’t want to be “Bartman-ized”. Actually, that makes some sense.

But that makes this just about one man. What about the team? The city and fans that want this so badly? If a plausible answer came to light, this would all blow over (except for the one guy who would eat it). As it stands today, there are still more questions than answers. LaRussa just made all this worse than it needed to be (assuming he’s covering up the real story). The Cardinals need to regain their focus and it’s pretty hard to do with this hanging over their collective head…..

A win tonight would fix everything. A loss? LaRussa will go from “baseball genius” to “baseball joke” over night. He’s just not a smart person if he thinks anyone believes the bullshit answers that he’s feeding the media right now……

Last January, I mocked the Angels for TRADING FOR V-Wells.

Here was the post I put up after that trade:

“the Angels are fucking retarded morons. Trading for Vernon Wells? I don’t give a flying fuck what he did last year, he is probably the most overpaid player in all of baseball based on production (besides Zito). And they TRADED for him. Shit, Napoli, if given a starting spot, might hit more HR’s than him. They coulda paid him 6 mil to do that. Instead they trade for “Mr Nagging Injury” and get to pay him 86 more million. Shit, why didn’t they just overpay for Carl Crawford?”

I couldn’t believe that a GM would WILLINGLY trade for one of those bad, bulging contracts. It was bad enough that a GM would GIVE a guy 100-200 million. But a guy TRADING for one of those contracts? It made no sense at all. Only an idiot would take what Wells did in 2010 and say “Hey, I think he’s back on track. Gimmie Wells and the 85 million he’s still owed.”

Anyway, I also made a quick comment  in passing about the guy the Angels gave up for the great honor of taking on Wells and his bulbis contract. Mike Napoli has been a revelation this year. Besides probably being the WS MVP, this dude banged out 30 bombs this year, he hit .320 with a 1.046 OPS. He was a monster. What did Wells do? He hit .218 with 25 bombs. Predictable.

But that’s not even the thing that blows my mind the most. Who did the Angels have to replace Napoli at catcher? Jeff Freaking Mathis–he’s So-Cal’s version of *Whitey*. Mathis, the last 3 years, has hit .211, .195, and .174. He’s had over 1200 at bats in those 3 years. I understand he’s a stud defensive guy who the manager loves. But he’s batting .194 over the course of the last 3 years. Whiteside just blew a load in his pants. If he doesn’t keep the back up job with SF he can always head down to Anaheim and be embraced with open arms by Mike Scioscia…..

I took a long look at Napoli when I was getting ready for my drafts last Winter but mostly because he qualified as a catcher and you just don’t get anything from that position besides a handful of guys. But, in 30 round leagues he was going 10-11 round and that was just too early for my tastes. Clearly, I made a mistake…..

Toronto is almost as bad as the Angels, they trade FOR this dude and then turn him over to Texas 4 days later for Frank *gas can* Francisco. The Toronto GM was probably so excited to have pawned off Wells he didn’t take much time appreciating the found gold he had, instead pining his hopes on Arencibia who hit about what I thought he’d hit for the year (.219)…..

One GM’s good decision is another GM’s bad decision and those are usually the differences between being on vacation now while the *other guys* are still winning baseball games…….

As this series unfolds and we watch the pendulum swing back and forth, I think we are seeing two teams that aren’t evenly matched as much as they are genuinely flawed. They both have good offenses and below average pitching staffs, so in that respect I guess they are evenly matched. But when you have average pitching there’s just no way to predict how a game might turn out. These are all major league pitchers, they all have talent. A lot of the time they’ll get lit up or have no idea where the strike zone is. Other times they turn in their serviceable 5.2 innings. Occasionally, like last night, you get a gem out of Holland. And hey, every blue moon you get a no hitter out of a guy like Edwin Jackson……

If you’ve got great pitching v a poor offense it’s usually a lot more easy to predict. The Giants, for instance, could be counted on for months of bad hitting and months of great pitching. Occasionally, you’d get the *7 run outburst* but more often it would be the usual *scratch and sniff*.

If I was betting (which I don’t do anymore because the stupid government shut down all the online gambling) I would have bet the over on last night’s game (I find both of those pitchers to be hittable except in the case of Jackson who is unhittable when he’s walking everybody). And of course, I would have lost. If I had offered you the Chiefs minus 27 yesterday, how many of you WOULDN’T have taken that? Betting on sports is fun. I’m glad I don’t have to try to make a livin’ doing it……..

No Niner game today. I can kinda get up for a quarter or two of the Raider game, especially if Palmer plays. But otherwise, today is a *get shit done* day. I find it much easier to get shit done when there aren’t any sports on tv to tickle my fancy with. I’m gonna start out at Katie’s school for some sort of *Work Day* to fix stuff at her school. I’ll be the one pretending to do something. I’m not known as a handy-man. After that, we have some Halloween shopping to do and will probably hit a pumpkin patch later. But that’s about it. You guys got anything special planned today? What does a typical Flapper do on a typical  Sunday when there isn’t any baseball (Giants) or football (Niners) to watch?

I had great interest in reading Baggs’ quick interview with Sabean published in the Merc this morning—greater interest than I’ve had in the playoffs up to this point. I was going to take a shot at watching an entire actual game today but Game 3 is starting at the same time the Cardinal game starts so that isn’t happening…..

Anyway, pretty typical comments from Sabean but this line from Baggs disturbed me a little: “Sabean said he probably cannot acquire another full time catcher as insurance because resources will be needed elsewhere.” I get it that we will be dumping a lot of money into the pitching staff, and I’m fine with that. But this admission suggests that the brass didn’t quite get how devastating the Stew-Whitey tandem was to the line up last year. With Crawford hitting in front of the catching position we were basically giving away a third of our outs each time through the order. That isn’t going to ever work or be ok. If Sabean thinks we can go into a season with one of those 2 catchers as our back up to Posey he just isn’t understanding how bad they were last year.

I would sign a legit back up major league catcher who wouldn’t just back up Posey—Let him play a couple of days a week vs lefty pitching and slide Buster over to first base. We have precious little right handed power hitters and if the choice is Pill or Posey at first during those games I go with Buster all day long— it would also give his body a break and if the unthinkable happens again, and he either can’t recover from the ankle injury or he gets badly hurt again, then we have a legitimate player to put behind the dish for the rest of the season…..

To not take this approach is short sighted, risky and borderline ignorant. I hope the brass does the right thing here……….

I loved reading the comments from everyone….Here is a partial post from Stix from the thread below. It is the perfect way to end this…..

Saving the best for last……

….Baseball is sacred, in its way. It is the hallmark of dedication and devotion and sometimes even deification. But it is not idolatry. We do not so much idolize these gifted athletes and their feats as we adore the spirits that move them to perform the way they do. Ultimately, the spiritual triumphs over the material. All the experts picked the other guys in this most blessed Post-Season. But it was the team with the most character, the largest number of characters and the greatest spirit who became World Champions……”

SF Giants: 2010 World Series Champions

1. More. Win.

I searched youtube for the Tony La Russa *dancing in tights” videos and only came up with “Tony La Russa–DUI videos”– some of those were a hoot, as was David Cassidy’s road side test. I feel a twinge of sympathy for celebrities who get pulled over. Once the cop finds out who they are they probably do anything they can to be able to bring them in. But that sympathy goes away when I remember that they are millionaires who should be able to afford a driver or, at worst, a cab ride home. Anyway….

I am rooting for Texas to win this series and I think they win it rather easily. Everyone talks about how poor, dumb Ron Washington can’t manage within the NL rules. Well, he’s made the World Series 2 straight years so he’s gotta be doing something right. And I suspect he, and his players, gleaned a lot from last year’s experience. I’ll say Rangers in 6 (and I almost said 5)….

The Raider Trade: It’s a trade they had to make. There wasn’t anyone on their roster or languishing on the WW who could step in and keep this thing going. Everyone is looking at Palmer’s last couple of years (saying his best years are behind him) but he had no deep threats on those teams and that’s the Raider’s specialty. I can’t wait to see how that  golden arm connects to the bullet trains that Oakland sends on all their “go” routes. I don’t follow Oakland enough to know how good their O-Line is so that could be a problem if they aren’t any good. But if he’s got any time at all this offense could turn into a high-flying machine. And they’ve got McFadden that the defense always has to stop. The *go* routes and the *post* routes are there for the taking if they want it…..

Plus, they DID technically draft a #1 QB in the supplemental draft this year (Pryor). That could have been the *type* of guy they would have drafted anyway in next year’s draft….

Of course they paid too much. But if it works and they go deep in the playoffs or to another Super Bowl and Palmer is re-born in Oakland, the price won’t matter a bit. Only the results. And although it’s a huge gamble, I can’t think of a better way to say “Just win, Baby”….

Moments In Time

I guess some people called Texas in the World Series, but St Louis? This is a repeat of 2006 for them when they won 83 games and, of course, the World Series. This year they won more (90) but they are the last team I would have picked to get here.

And what will the over/under’s be for these two gas can pitching staffs? The total runs for both of these “clincher” games? 38. Thirty-eight freaking runs in 2 games. That’s not baseball that’s beer league softball.

Maybe I’m just being bitter about the Giants not being there but I’ve got no interest in watching a parade of shitty pitchers get blasted away on and somehow trick myself into believing that these are the best 2 teams that baseball has to offer…

So how about those Niners, eh? Of course, I was wrong about how the game would unfold. I get to chucklin’ every time I think about Harbaugh and his “humble hearts” comment from last week. Is there a bigger dick anywhere in football when it comes to the coach’s handshake than Jimbo? The “What’s YOUR deal” guy looks like he could stand a lesson in sportsmanship. I think the Detroit coach over reacted but Harbaugh needs to look at his end-of-game win reactions. Simple lesson not just in sports but in life: act like you’ve been there before…..

I’m re-posting my contribution to Chuck’s blog this morning. Nailing football scores are tough but take a stab at it even if you don’t care about the game. It beats whatever baseball game is on today. For what it’s worth, I see Milwaukee winning today. Marcum is such the better pitcher than Edwina.

Glory today, But Destiny Awaits…..

Back to Philly

Great Cody Ross Story

Black Beards VS Phuckin Fillies…….

I was driving around yesterday re-living some of the moments from last post season in my brain. It wasn’t really doing it for me. When I got home I decided to check out the archives at The Flap and that DEFINITELY did it for me. I appreciate that many of you aren’t Niner fans and there just isn’t a lick of Giants news to kick around right now. So at least for the next week or so, maybe longer, I’m gonna re-post a thread from last year and try to have it be exactly a year ago today. Today’s was actually written the morning of October 10th, I believe that was the “Brook’s Conrad” game. We were 1-1 in the series before that game. I picked this thread to start because, like many of you, I enjoyed Stix’ posts from last night. And last October 10th I appreciated one of his posts so much that I re-posted it in the main thread. You can go read the comments too, but I would encourage you not to *read ahead* since I will be posting some of the best threads that followed last year in the coming days. So, without further adieu, I give you YOUR 2010 San Francisco Giants, on the way to becoming World Series Champions, 2010….

Guest Author For Game 3….

It’s amazing how quickly baseball has switched out in my brain with football taking over. I tried to watch some of the Brewers game yesterday–even had it on right next to the Niner game at the Sports bar I was at. I just couldn’t do it. It could be that the pace of the two games are so different. I love the pace of a baseball game when I’m watching it, especially live. But putting it next to the helter-skelter violence and speed of a football game? Baseball is a cerebral game, football is an ADHD game. I like both but trying to watch them at the same time? I dunno, it just didn’t work for me. It could also have to do with me not really giving a rip about any of the teams left in the playoffs. Say what you will about the Yankees but the drama, the anticipation of the game, just isn’t really there without them. I just had to go to Yahoo sports to see who won the Tigers/Rangers Game and saw it was postponed due to weather. I had no idea……

The other possible reason I didn’t get into the Brewers game is that I am swimming neck deep in a re-birth in NinerLand. Football is fun again. Alex Smith is now the 3rd highest rated passer in all of football. After five games, let that fact sink in if you even can. And where the Hell did Carlos Rogers come from? I mean, I know he played for the ‘Skins but this guy is a revelation. He’s like the 2nd coming of Eric Wright. And what I’m most impressed with is not his picks (those are great, though) it’s how well he reads routes. The dude is certain of what play is coming and he cuts off everything. Unreal.

My favorite quote from Alex Smith yesterday? Easy: “I don’t think it’s some big, magic thing. WE JUST CONTINUE TO LEARN and improve.” It’s sad that Smith was coached by two fools for so many years. I mean, I know Nolan and Sing didn’t *coach* him. But they did nothing but get in the way of his development and success. He’s now got a coach who believes in him and who COACHES him and who is installing an offense that utilizes these skills. I’ve always thought that Harbaugh sees himself in Smith–a guy who had skills, maybe not to be *Joe Montana*, but a guy who would develop later in his career……

Anyway, I’ll keep the baseball game on in the background and will check the box scores every day. Maybe catch a few highlights at mlb.com. But the rest of my sports-watching time will be 100% focused on The Motor City. Bring on the Lions, baby. That will be a tough one to win……

I think anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn’t ever celebrate a person being injured. One exception: I  have no problem with a football player going after a known injured area of an opposing football player. It’s a violent game, if you take the field willingly you are fair game. And exploiting weaknesses is what football is all about. I’m still pissed that the Niners didn’t go after Romo when they knew he was hurt……

But I don’t celebrate other people being hurt or injured. I don’t have a bad feeling in the world about Ryan Howard, I hope he’s ok. And I do have genuine sympathy for him and for how his last 2 seasons have ended….

Hell, I’ve been hurt several times playing sports. I’ve torn ligaments in both wrists diving for balls on separate plays 2 years apart. Competing is something to honor and if you get hurt doing so you get honored that much more.

I just don’t like the Philly fan base and I never will. They’re all a bunch of whiny, hubris-inebriated,  out of touch with reality, blaming booing fucks. And I will not be changing this opinion any time soon…..

Except for Tom Petty. I fucking love Tom Petty and he gets a pass with me for as long as we are both alive for being a Philly fan. No Flappers, it’s not THAT  Tom Petty. But the one I’m talking about reads the blog regularly, lurking but never posting. I hope you’re good my man, you need to check in soon. 🙂

Here’s a pic of one of the great men I have been lucky enough to know in my lifetime. This dude is a compilation of brilliance, genius, glory and destiny. He is, quite simply, THE MAN!

This has been a good week phor me. I revel in watching east coast teams phail. New York and Philadelphia both got knocked out. I’ve got nothing against the players who phail. It’s their phans who I don’t like. I don’t like the east coast media, either. When east coast teams phail, they blame it on bad luck. The other team “caught lightening in a bottle.” Phailure doesn’t happen to their team. At least in the pre-season. Or the regular season. Phailure only happens to  other teams. At least until it happens to them…..

So watching the Eagles phail last week to my phavorite phootball team, during the same week I was celebrating the one year anniversary of my phavorite baseball team phorcing a phail right down the Phillies throats made phor a really good week phor me. And watching Ryan Howand lie on the phield, injured, as yet another season went up in smoke phor a phan base that I don’t like or respect, well, that just capped a really good seven days phor me. I’ve got nothing against Howard so don’t think I’m celebrating his injury. At least he got his bat off his shoulder this time. It’s the epic collective phail of a phan base that I am celebrating. Phuck you, Philly phans. Don’t phorget the phacts. This season, phailure phinally phound you. Phrankly speaking, your *dream teams* phooled you. Enjoy your off season of phreaking out and phantasizing about phinishing 2012 with a championship. You’re phucking delusional……..

I was shaking my head at some of the blogger comments I read this morning that were celebrating the Yankees losing to the Tigers. Many commenters called them “cheaters!”. Huh? How are the Yankees cheating? They have a high payroll. That’s cheating? They operate completely within the boundaries of the rules of signing players. And the other owners don’t complain, in fact they secretly love it, because of how much direct revenue the Yankees bring each time they come to play them in their yard. Not to mention the luxury tax and revenue sharing that they dole out through mlb back to the other 29 teams. They have constructed one of the most successful, BEST cable companies in the world. If you don’t subscribe to the YES network you should know this: they put on the best baseball production (pre and post game included) of any team in the country. It’s not even close.

And another little FACT that everyone seems to miss: most of the time, they aren’t *buying* anything but misery for their fan base. Since their WS win in 2000 they’ve won exactly ONE WS in the last 11 seasons. That’s a percentage of failure that hardly suggests *buying* championships. Forgetting their salaries, that rate of success is right around the same as every other team that’s won a world series over the last 11 seasons. They are “one of the gang” of the more successful franchise’s over the last decade…….

So they aren’t *cheating* and they certainly aren’t *buying* championships, that’s been proven. What they consistently do is put a professional, winning, cash producing product on the field every single year. They also consistently produce a hilarious dysfunctional drama through the press that is better than any soap opera or reality show. Listen, these players are held to a different standard than almost any other player not playing in Boston. They put up with a lot of sh!t and for the most part do it with dignity and honor. Say what you will about A-ROD but he knows what it means to be a Yankee and how to conduct yourself in public. He screws it up all the time, but he knows what he’s supposed to do. In fact, watching him screw it up is another reason that following the Yankees is one of my hobbies. 🙂

They play the villain. Every great story needs one. They know their role. But they aren’t villain’s the way you would look at T.O or Romanowski or guys like that. They play the game the way it is meant to be played and I, for one, have always honored them for that. Watching them lose, and knowing what that does to their pompous fan base, is a sick pleasure to enjoy.

But calling them *cheaters* and the *Evil Empire* just doesn’t make any sense to me…..

By the way, Detroit’s payroll is in the top 10 in all of baseball. This is hardly a case of the poor factory worker taking down his well-off factory owner boss. The Twins, Cubs, Mets and Giants are in the top 10, too. Did they *buy* a World Series this year? Ha, they couldn’t even get into the playoffs. And the Twins, Mets and Cubs were awful this year. Those 3 teams spent about 350 million dollars this year. As Ricky would say, “For who, for what?”

You don’t buy World Series championships. You earn them with a little luck along the way…..

This has been kicked around a bit already. I find it interesting that there isn’t a single headline about his dropped lawsuit at the Giants official website (though Yahoo reports the team is “welcoming him back with open arms”). What a weird situation the team is now in with him. He’s 21 freaking years old. They have precious few hitting prospects in their organization. But their BEST hitting prospect plays the position Villalona had taken over prior to killing that (er, I mean, being *accused* of killing that guy) in the DR (Belt/1B).

From a PR standpoint, the Giants should probably cut ties with the guy. Despite what may or may not have happened, the *perception* is that Villalona paid off the family of the dude who was murdered. It’s impossible to know what happened down there, he’s as likely totally innocent as he is guilty. Maybe he paid off the family, maybe he didn’t. But again, the *perception* is that he was guilty of killing a man. What chapter of The Giants Way does this conundrum cover? I guess with Bow Tie gone….um, nevermind.

What do you do with him? It appears they don’t know yet. I suppose they could shy away from answering anything about him and just let him start playing in their minor league system again. Being a legit hitter goes a long way–though it’s still unclear if that’s what Villalona will ever be……..

Trade bait?

Career minor leaguer?

Our next great hitting prospect?

If I’m Villalona, I never go back to the DR again. He’s got a 2nd chance or maybe he dodged a bad luck bullet frame job. Either way, he’s got an opportunity here. Where and with whom that opportunity lies is unclear.  It’ll be interesting to watch it play itself out…..

I’m catching a little bit here and there. I’ve watched the Yankee/Detroit games. Most of them anyway. It’s been hard for me to think about baseball with the season over and the buzzkill of the Giants not being in it this year. Are you guys watching it?

I have Detroit beating Philly in Twin’s contest. I did it quickly and if I had to do it over again I think I would have Milwaukee in the WS vs the Tigers. The Brewers have 3 stud pitchers who I think will shut down Philly’s offense (assuming they get by the Cardinals). And there is just something about that line up that is impossible not to admire–speed and power. It’s a beautiful thing……

Go through their starting 8. I’d take every single one of them over who the Giants had starting this year except McGehee  over Panda, obviously. Morgan was a nice find for them this year. He modified his game, upped his batting average and didn’t try to get thrown out stealing every time he got on first base. He’s still crazy since you can’t extract that out of your body. But he’s kept his insanity pretty well in check this year. He could have been the next Milton Bradley (and still might end up that way).

Anyway, the Brewers are legit, I wouldn’t want to face them in the playoffs……..

***************************************************

Huge HUGE opportunity for you today (insert gay-ass…oh whatever you know). If you are interested in guest-posting an upcoming thread, email me your post and I’ll slap it up here. You can sign your name or not, it doesn’t matter to me. Don’t send me thread IDEAS send me something you write that could be an actual thread. I’m all about cutting and pasting these days. Twin’s already got Room B covered so it can’t be him.  It would help me out since thread ideas are few and far between in *the Winter* so don’t be shy. Hell, it could be a Haiku for all I care.  E mail me if you want to take a shot at this gig: bigflavor77@gmail.com

We did it to them again. Less than a year ago, our team from San Francisco gave Philly fans a lesson in what happens when you have too much hubris. Some of them are still waiting for Ryan Howard to swing that bat. Yesterday, the Alex Smith Led Niners doled out another painful lesson to learn. There are few things I enjoy more in sports than knocking an east coast fan base or media base down a few pegs. And boy did we do that yesterday. The “Dream Team” is turning into a nightmare. How many Super Bowl teams started the year 1-3? There’s probably precedent for it but it can’t be too many.

Chuck is doing a fabulous job with his new blog ninersforever.com. You can check it out in the blogroll to the right. I shouldn’t have a thread about football but I’m still flying high off one of the great Niner comebacks in their history. As a longtime Harbaugh disciple from our street growing up as kids through his short but dominant time at The Farm, nothing about what he’s doing with this team is surprising me. I thought it might take a little longer to take hold since they had virtually no training camp. But what he’s done with the Niners in this short time is amazing and Alex Smith, as I suspected, is reaping the benefits of a coach who believes in him as well as actually coaches him. His QB rating for the year is 97.7 and that’s outstanding no matter how you look at it. He’s ahead of Romo, Vick, Rivers, Newton…..even the vaunted Dalton. Who’d a thunk that?

Yes, this is a Giants blog and “no” I will not be tolerating anything but high praise for Smith and the Niners here today. If you’re a fan, enjoy this re-birth in San Francisco. But this bus isn’t taking on any new fares so if you weren’t on before the season started just wait patiently for the next one. The Cowboy bus should be coming along any time now…….

If you want to check out a historic baseball milestone, clink on this link

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/60th-anniversary-bobby-thomsons-famous-homer/

Big college football weekend so this will be quick. I still don’t understand what the hell Bochy and Sabean were talking about regarding Huff at their press conference. They both attributed his down year to not doing enough in his off season conditioning program. They threw in all the requisite press conference bs like “we’re here to win” and “Aubry was humbled by this year” and “he’s gotta pull more weight”. But then on the Giants website they have Huff saying “Huff took full accountability for his year, saying he began the season with mechanical problems before his problems became more mental than anything….”

Huh?

Everyone was praising Sabes/Bochy for that forthcoming press conference but they left more questions unanswered than answered. What EXACTLY did Huff NOT do in his off season workout program? He looked exactly the same in 2010 as he did in 2011 so it wasn’t a weight issue. And I still don’t see how *being out of shape* results in you hitting 464 billion bouncing balls to 2nd base. Plus, Huff himself is on the Giants website saying it was a mechanical/mental thing.

Huff got married in the off season and his wife gave birth to their first child. Was he up all night helping feed the baby and too tired to do anything the next day? Who knows.

He did rake the ball in Spring Training so I don’t understand why his suggested poor conditioning didn’t show itself then. Something that was NEVER brought up was his 1 on/1 off pattern from year to year. Sabean even brought up “the back of his baseball card” without mentioning that. It was actually mentioned at this blog several times last off season and it’s a pretty obvious pattern. I am assuming that Huff knows this too and that’s what he meant when he said “and then it became a mental thing.” If so, we are in for a nice year in 2012. Plus that baby’s sleep pattern might be a little more regular and the dude is finally getting some sleep 🙂

I’d like to see Belt at first base next season with Pill getting some playing time against lefties. Pill might also learn how to play the outfield. Something that never seems to get brought up is that we have very little right handed hitting power in this team. Outside of Posey and Panda (when he can swing right handed) it would be nice to have another right handed hitting bat in the LU or coming off the bench in the later innings. I could absolutely see Pill with that role next season and if the Giants don’t go get a *Willingham* or someone comparable to play left field, it could be *Huffy* out there with Belt at first base…..

Kind of a weirdo news conference from Bochy and Sabean yesterday. Things that stuck out:

On a day where Yahoo Sports had a red light blinking breaking news flash that said “Tom Brady Cuts his Hair” I gotta say, last night was pretty entertaining in the baseball world. The only team that ho-hummed it was St Louis. With the Cardinals and Rays both getting in on the final day of the season it’s difficult to guess how they’ll do in the playoffs since they were basically all-out to get in. Carpenter and Price both had to pitch yesterday so I’m not sure when they will come up in their respective playoff games.

The Rays have 3 legit stud pitchers they can throw out there to start a game (Price, Shields and Hellickson). St Louis isn’t built like that, they’ve got 4 guys who all have that “Storm Davis” feel to them. Carpenter has been very good the last month but the other 3 are just *guys*. Plus their closer situation is a joke. La Russa might hesitantly tell you that his closer is Salas but the truth is that there isn’t a guy down in that bullpen who La Russa trusts to close out a game. The Rays have Farnsworth closing this year and he’s been reliable but I just don’t like that guy based off what I saw from him earlier in his career. Dead straight fastball is what I remember. Maybe he’s changed his game, I don’t know.

That Rays game was just a wild ride, baby. I didn’t start watching it till someone texted me in the 8th inning. Did Girardi do anything wrong in that game at least in terms of *baseball book* stuff? I don’t think so. He obviously had a game plan of who the first 4 or 5 pitchers would be. They did take a 7-0 lead. His goal was obviously to prepare for Game 1 of the playoffs. Why should he be required to go all-out to win a game he didn’t need to win? I don’t have a problem with him pulling his starters as the game went on. Again, they were up 7-0. Once the Rays came back there was no reason for Girardi to change the game plan he had going into the game. If the team was good enough to build a 7-0 lead it’s obvious he wasn’t trying to lose the game last night. And why should the Yankees be required to keep all their aging players in a game that went extras and could have easily gone longer than 12? They did the minimum amount to compete in the game. That’s all you should be able to expect them to do in a game that was all about staying healthy and resting up for Game 1 vs the Tigers………

The FINAL Flap Fantasy League Standings

(a little gratuitous here, I am only posting the standings to highlight the 4 pt beat down I dropped on the league yesterday. Emphatic win for Team Flavor 🙂  I put the entire standings up so you can see how hard everyone played. “Moves” is the total number of waiver wire adds as well as any trade transactions that they participated in. Blade and G-Head played hard till the end. Fun playing with all you guys this year!)

I’m marginally behind Jenkin’s Chron article this morning. I agree we won’t be going after any of the big FA guys. Not because we don’t need them but because we’re going to start seeing that *rainy day fund* start to grow. I suspect it’s a fund that will actually be 10 mini-funds that are kept in the back pocket of each executive board member.

I’d be fine with Jimmy Rollins at SS I just don’t know if the contract years can get worked out. He’ll be 33 this November, I would think HE sees this as his last big deal. Could he get 4 or 5 years from someone? Maybe. We should only offer him 2. We have a few guys (Crawford, Panik, and Twin’s guy) who are in the plans big time and will be here in 2013 at the latest.

Cuddyer would be fine. He’s a little like Ty Wiggington only better. Bring him aboard if the money works….

All those words written by Jenkins and not a single mention of the obvious need for a back up catcher…..

And we need a center fielder. Badly. I’m not even thinking of Gary Brown until 2013……

The Flap Fantasy Baseball League Standings

(With a game to go, it looks like most of the spots are wrapped up. It would take an epic collapse on the final day for me not to take home the coveted broken-headed Rich Aurilia Bobble Head (first place). After I win him back from Blade who won him last year (though kept him with me) I will attempt to glue that goddamn head back on and hope that this time it sticks. This Winter, he can give me a furious knowing dude head nod whenever I order him to.)

Eli Whiteside is the luckiest man in the world. A man with no talent for his trade (at this level) has somehow managed to stay employed for 2 and 1/2 seasons and log over 500 at bats. He’s made over a million dollars. He’s got a World Series ring. A guy like Justin Christian who is still trying to get a whiff of his 100th at bat in the BIGS must just look at Whitey and shake his head. With 2 games to go it’s stat-watch time. Will Whiteside keep his head above the Mendoza line? Probably. He’s at .201 right now and I don’t think going 0-8 the rest of the way would drop him below. It might, I don’t feel like doing the math. Bochy probably wouldn’t let it happen and Stew should get at least one more start.

Some of his stats the last 2 months are just mind blowing. How did Bochy continue to start him?

He’s hitting .103 in September.

In 58 at bats in Aug and Sept he has scored 3 runs. He’s got 2 extra base hits. He’s walked twice. His OPS for September is .271. Huh? .271? Just like they gave me 400 for writing my name on the SAT’s I thought they gave you an OPS of at least .300 for knowing where the batters box is. Apparently not.

I get that he’s the great clubhouse guy and everything. I would have been a good clubhouse guy, too. But for a team so bad at hitting a ball it was really just….unnecessary to have this guy continue to miss baseballs with such great frequency. Stewart or Hector the Collector would have been better. And I DO know that. Either would have checked in with an OPS over .271. Right?

Congratulations to Voggy on a fantastic season. He was better at home than on the road but in many ways he saved our season (at least in terms of keeping us in it for so long). He was a deserving winning of the Willie Mac Award, though if I had a say, I would have had Pablo and him split it…….

Baggs Blog noted the short list of players who had at least 200 K’s, a sub 2.75 ERA and a losing record.

Man, after taking a look at those 6 guys with the worst luck in the world I decided that Timmy didn’t have it nearly as bad as I thought. Check out good ol’ Ed Walsh who lost 20 games in 1910 while posting a 1.27 ERA. That’s insane. He went 40-15 in 1908. Oh well, different time, different game……….

It looks like Franchez finally bothered to show up to watch a game in Arizona (he lives there and is rehabbing, not sure why a guy under contract for NEXT year didn’t make all three games of that series). Once again, he might not be ready for Opening Day. It seems like every time that dude goes under the knife he waits about a month too long to get the surgery done. Who will the back up be? The obvious answer looks to be Keppinger. There will be something weird about basically offering him arbitration just to back up Sanchez. He’s a starter, or should be, on this club. He’s slumped lately but I am certain that has had something to do with a hand injury he suffered in Houston running into the first baseman. He’s a .300 hitter and this team needs all of those they can find. Anyway, he’s not a shortstop, so really he’s not versatile enough to play anything other than 2nd base. Actually, he’ll probably see a lot of time there in 2012 (assuming we offer him a deal). Franchez will be breaking down right around a week after Sabean trips over himself to offer him another extension……

Have a great day. I’m B-lining back to B…….

Well if you’re gonna get eliminated, get eliminated in style. 15-2. Didn’t leave much doubt with that stinker. I’ve been pretty pessimistic about Surkamp and yesterday’s start didn’t do anything to change my mind. He’s got a SO/BB ratio of 10/15 and that is just atrocious. You can’t hang at this level with that backwards-ass ratio. It’ll be interesting to see what they do for the 5 next year. It can’t be Zito. And I don’t think it’s Surkamp. Sabes might have to find himself another Voggy….

Surprisingly, being eliminated didn’t really bother me a bit. The writing has been on the wall for the last week or so. And the team kept this season *alive* as long as they possibly could. Making it to the 2nd to last series of the year with a shot at making the playoffs was about all we could ask of this broken-down, injured, no-hit team. It’s a shame we wasted a full season of a lights out pitching staff. You can’t count on years like this one being repeated too often….

Everyone is boo-hooing for Cain and I’m with that group, too. But the guy I feel really bad for is The Panda. He’s had to sit on the bench a couple of times over the last week because he can’t swing right handed. It’s been like that for 6 weeks. His season of playing through pain hasn’t gotten nearly the acknowledgment that it deserves….

Last night, I went outside and swung Twin’s bat for a few minutes. It’s broken but I have re-taped in and it’s pretty swingable as long as it doesn’t make contact with anything.  I was a switch hitter when I played (through high school). I probably had a little more power batting left handed, a better batting average right handed. Last night I kept going back and forth, right handed swing, left handed swing, etc. I imagined how Pablo felt at each point of his right handed swing. I wondered where the pain was. At what point does it get so bad that he has to shake his head sideways and say “I can’t go.”

Have any of you ever had shoulder pain? About 10 years ago I had awful right shoulder pain. It didn’t hurt at all unless I pointed my index finger at about a 60 degree angle. So I did what a smart man would be inclined to do and I didn’t point in that direction for a while. The pain went away. I wonder if Panda’s shoulder pain is pervasive. Does he feel it every time he jolts his body to get in front of a grounder? Does he feel it when he reaches for the salt shaker? Or is it just on right handed swings? Imagine how bad it must be for him to say “I can’t go.”

I didn’t have any interest in writing about last night or about the D-backs winning the NL West. But I did go to bed last night feeling bad for The Panda having to hang on the rail instead of start at 3rd base. His season of playing through pain and dealing with injury is something we should honor for longer than a moment…..

Ha. Oh well, I can dream. Honestly, the Giants have done just about as good as I could have hoped for after that pathetic month of August. Through all the injuries, the DFA’s, the silent bats and a surprise September boost from a ticketless sun dressed beauty, somehow this team is still alive with the most important series of the year about to start. Who didn’t circle this series as *critical* about 6 weeks ago? And sure enough, it still is. If we sweep the D-backs then it really will come down to the final series of the year for both teams. Granted, it’s an incomprehensible long shot that we force a tie in the division, but it is at least mathematically possible. And as I said, for a team that on Wednesday started a line up that didn’t have a single player on it from Opening Day, I find that astounding and will take this moment to appreciate how they didn’t quit when they could have easily done so. They kept the games meaningful until the 2nd to last series of the year. Not bad and certainly nothing to cry and complain about….

Lots of good things happened last night. To wit:

1) they beat up on Eveland allowing me to sleep last night

2) they ensured that the Dodgers couldn’t put a fork in us

3) the D-Backs “Viewing Party” was canceled

4) I got to use Pill as POTG again. I will never tire of searching for POTG pics for that dude…..

5) It kept the series this weekend relevant, at least for Friday’s game.

6) Oh, and they kept my 90 win total hope alive. It would have been technically *alive* even if they’d lost but I still like to have a game to play with since it looks like Surkamp is going to be getting a start in Arizona….

The Flap Fantasy League Standings

(things are sorting themselves out in the top 3 and Ed has pretty much locked up 11th place. That should feel like 1st place, my man, after the way your year started)

That game sucked. The Giants weren’t facing the dominant 13K, 2 hit masterpiece that we often see from Kershaw. We had our chances. And each time they were scattered away. Three guys getting picked off 1st base in the first 2 innings  (I’m lumping Torres in there since he was out by a mile at 2nd) is comically bad. We get a guy to scoring position in the 8th and Pablo swings through a totally hittable ball and Beltran doesn’t get a swing off, letting all balls go by peacefully, unmolested by his disinterested bat. He looked like Ryan Howard for a second. Then we get Burriss on 1st base and he doesn’t come close to producing the thing he’s there to do which is to steal 2nd and put himself in scoring position.

Meanwhile, AZ loses and last night would have been the PERFECT time to heap a boatload of pressure on them. Honestly, right now I just really want to make that series relevant and we can’t do that if we miss opportunities like we had last night. Execute or be executed……..

The only good thing that came out of last night’s loss was that tonight is a must-win (as are pretty much all the remaining games except maybe 1 if you think 90 wins gets it done). I’m glad The Dana Eveland Game is now a must-win. He is terrible, I don’t care what he did to us last time. This guy is a WALK MACHINE if you let him be one. The game he pitched against us on September 10th was the low point of the season, in my opinion. The next day the SDG took the reigns at The Flap and she’s been everything you could ask for from a dingy, huge-racked California girl. She doesn’t lose to “The Dana Eveland’s” of the world…….

On September 12th, when I wrote “let’s go 14-2 the rest of the way and see what happens” I didn’t realize that I was being the voice of a doomer. Still with 2 losses to play with, now we only need to go 7-2 to get to 90 wins. And since we will probably be required to sweep Arizona to get there, I’m looking at both the WC and the division title as possibilities. Look, Atlanta is not playing very good ball right now. Watching Kimbrel wander off the mound in a daze after giving up that Infante bomb made me think they are in more trouble than losing a single game. They are still on the road and then have to finish with 3 against Philly. The Braves are a wide open target right now. I’m trying to get worked up to worry about the Cardinals but their pitching just isn’t doing it for me. True, they have an awfully easy schedule the rest of the way, but if Houston plays them like they played us we have nothing to worry about in terms of passing the Cards…..

Really, it’s a simple plan. Make up a game a day against at least one of those 3 teams and we might be playing the final game of the season with either the WC or the division on the line………

But first things first. We get Kershaw right out of the game. Then Eveland. Then Kuroda. Two of three is mandatory and I swear to God if the one loss is against that chump Eveland my infuriation (my made up word for losing to bad pitchers) will explode from here to the moon…….

Final thought: Does Bochy sit Huff for Pill tonight? My gut says he does and it’s the right call……

Quite a game delivered by our ticketless beauty yesterday. During the 4th inning, most of the patrons at First and Main were slapping themselves on the forehead and their buddies on the back as the Giants smacked bomb after bomb out of Coors Field. I must have heard “Where has this been all year?” about 15 times. I just smiled and quietly toasted each bomb to her royal highness…….

I’m not thinking for a second about how many games back we are or how many are left. The goal should just be to make up a game on at least one the teams in from of us (Braves, St Louis and D-backs) every single day. We’ve been doing that for over a week now. If we keep winning and make up a game a day on one or more of them, this will all take care of itself……..

Perfect time for a day off. After 4 games in Colorado the bullpen could use the rest. Actually, we didn’t get too chewed up but a day to re-charge is welcomed. And what a fantastic surprise to see Bee-Wheezy out there. Now he doesn’t have to wait out all Winter and into ST to see how that arm feels. I’m not certain about this, but I don’t think the bullpen blew even a single save in his absence. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong……..

She’ll spend the day dancing barefoot in a meadow dreaming up new ways to make us smile…….

Flap Fantasy League Standings

(extending my lead, Blade wills his way into 3rd place and then there is….the rest)