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Okay, lame entry name. But it seemed to fit today's blarg - just "stuff" I've been looking at today.
I was amused by Bruce Jenkin's bit in today's SF Chron how Alex Hinshaw wears his hat. Sir Alex wears his hat with a flat brim, pulled down low and a little cock-eyed. I found a photo from his SJ Giants days that shows how he likes it:
Obviously, under normal circumstances, I'd have to say he's wearing it wrong. You just gotta bend the brim. Otherwise it's geeky. I'm making sure that my kids learn the proper way to wear a cap. But for some reason, I just like the idea of this guy wearing his cap this way. And so long as he keeps doing what he's been doing, I'm not gonna mock him for it, either.
Andrew Baggarly of the SJ Merc reports that the Giants are looking to deal some of the bullpen. Specifically, they're shopping around Thighler Walker, Vinnie Choke, Erik Threets and Brad Hennessey. I'd be happy to see Walker and Chulk go. I watch them pitch through the corner of one half-closed eye. Threets had the misfortune of going on the DL only to see Sir Alex's rise, displacing him from the 'pen; Threets' rehab assignment has to end today, and there's no room on the roster. He's got some real potential - it's a shame that the Giants can't keep him. Hennessey seems to have improved after his demotion to Fresno, where he's been starting. He may have some value.
I don't know what kind of players the Giants are looking for in return. Obviously there are needs on the corners, but I don't know that any of those guys can bring enough power or defense to the team. Some solid infleld/catching prospects would be good - as we've seen this season, the organization is kinda thin with regard to guys that can come up from the minors and perform at the big league level.
Should Cain be moved to the bullpen or even designated as the closer? MLB.com Giants beat reporter Chris Haft addresses this issue in his recent mailbag. Cain has had the misfortune of some awful run support over the last season-plus, which has led to a lopsided W-L record, considering his ERA and overall performance (although he's been a bit more spotty of late).
Haft notes that if Cain couldn't make it as a starter for some reason, he wouldn't be surprised to see the Giants try him in the bullpen. I'd only want him there if he were the closer - his stuff is too good for periodic short relief. Right now Wilson (NL leader in saves) is doing just fine as the closer, so I wouldn't want to mess with that. I want to see Cain stay in the lineup and work through his current rough patch. At some point, the guys will have to give him the offense he needs to pick up some more wins. And if that didn't work out, and the closer job still belongs to Wilson, I'd rather see a trade for a heavy bat.
And lastly: Awesome sweep of the D'backs. This gives me immense bragging rights against my nieces and nephew who root for the snakes. Who would have thought that my hapless Giants could take the series, let alone sweep it? I can't help but love this team.
If you haven't yet, be sure to check out Henry Schulman's article today in the SF Chron.
I've been annoyed this season not at the Giants' losing record (I think it's safe to say that we all expected that), but at seeing all those old guys in the line-up day after day after day.
We're all familiar with the strategy of past years of signing veterans (nice way of saying "old guys") to surround Barry Bonds in an effort to win a title (which was unsuccessful). With the departure of Bonds after last season, the idea was to begin rebuilding - finally getting some of the boys from the farm system up and starting anew. Unfortunately, the team still had some old guys signed from last year still on the roster. And now we're seeing more of those old guys this season, and far less of the young guys.
Granted, a couple of the kids demonstrated that they weren't ready for everyday play at the big-league level. Velez and Bocock come to mind. At least we know that now. And if the consistent play of the old guys showcases them enough to get some attention on the trade market, then maybe it's worth it in the short term.
But if the trade deadline comes and goes, and I'm still seeing Aurilia and Durham out on the field every day, I'm going to be one cranky fan. I'm not prepared to endure a pathetic season this year, and then go through it all again next year while we delay the inevitable.
A former Giants org player (released before the season) was traded for 10 bats.
Jose Castillo is worth at least 20 bats, don't you think. Good maple ones?
I'm still catching up on topics from the last week. On Monday, Tim Kawakami from the Merc wrote in his blog (about which Giants are keepers and which ones aren't. He explained his criteria in the condensed version of the blog in the paper:
Simple rules. Given what we've seen so far, which Giants and A's players could play a productive role on a championship-level team now and into the future?
That's my definition of a "keeper."
Bottom line: out of the 27 players that Kawakami looks at, he only considers 5 to be keepers. Of those 5, 3 are pitchers (obviously Cain, Lincecum and Wilson), and two are outfielders (Rowand and Lewis, although Kawakami doesn't think Rowand is worth the money).
I can't argue with those keepers. Good call.
There are some other non-keepers that are no-brainers. Castillo (Pedro lite). Velez ('nuff said). Aurilia (sentiment only goes so far, Richie). Zito (can we get a refund?). Walker (either really good or really bad - too much of the latter). Chulk (aka batting tee). Durham (old slow guy).
I think there needs to be a third category. Maybe some guys wouldn't "play a productive role on a championship-level team", but they still have some value, intangible or otherwise.
For instance, Omar Vizquel. Yeah, he's past his prime. His defense is still good. And I think he improves the players around him. Plus, I'd like to see him start working on some coaching skills. If we work it right, maybe we can keep him in the organization once his playing days are done. I wouldn't want to trade him away.
Burriss. He's raw. And the bigs isn't the best place to develop. He could use some more seasoning. But he plays hard, and seems to have to tools to improve. I'd like to see him stay with the team to see what he can be.
As Kawakami points out, Ortmeier hasn't "won over Bochy." And he is 27. But at the least, he's a good fourth fielder. We've burned through a bunch of these kinds of guys over the last few years. Until we're sure we have another good option, let's hang on to this guy.
For the rest? Can't say as I'd miss any of them. And that's probably the most disappointing part of the team this year. There aren't that many guys to get excited about.
Who are you following this year? Who should we keep, and who can go?
Okay, so I've let my blarg go a bit. I'm going to claim that the demands of real life have interfered. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
The Giants' world has been busy the last week. I'll hit a few miscellaneous points that had caught my attention.
First off, I'm just lovin' the new managing partner's name. Neukom. Nuke 'em. The possibilities. . . Plus, he's a lawyer. It gives me hope that one day I, too, can run a baseball team. Well, once I make $100 million to invest in a club (a girl can dream!). I read through an article about Neukom. The quote that stands out most to me is from a former law school classmate (who is now president of the Seattle Mariners), who said " he doesn't like to lose." That gives me some hope - maybe he'll be willing to do something to get this team moving forward. And the dean of Stanford Law School says "He has the audacity to really set ambitious goals, and then he does it by sheer force of personality." That could also bode well for the Giants.
But will management be willing to go so far as Kevin Towers, GM of the last place Padres. He said "I'm certainly not going to watch this for another four months," he told reporters yesterday. He also said, "We've got some hungry players down below looking for an opportunity. There's not one player in the system who is going to turn it around. If we make changes, it will be wholesale." The Giants management has taken hesitant steps in the direction of bringing up the kids, but we continue to see the old (and ineffective) veterans in the line-up day to day, with the kids on the bench. And the results have been predictably dismal.
On the plus side, though, Eugenio Velez has been sent back down. I was initially a big supporter of Velez. He was fast and bold. But really, it turns out that he was inattentive and made bad decisions. His defense was suspect. And he got picked off way too often. As Bochy said: "It's a few things. He's been struggling at the plate. He's getting frustrated with that. It looks like his defense was affected. That, and the pickoffs. It seems like no matter what he did, things didn't go right for him. This is the right thing to do, send him down and get his game back." He wasn't ready for the bigs just yet, and it wasn't the place for him to learn. Sabean acknowledged as much: "It's obvious he doesn't have major-league playing time and doesn't know how to perform day in and day out offensively or defensively."
Next up: Taking a look at Tim Kawakami's blog about which players to keep, and which should go.
As an indication of the sorry state of the Giants, one of the bigger controversies of the season is the Castillo vs. Feliz debate. Much to my delight, the Giants let Pedro Feliz go to the Phillies during the off-season. Much to my dismay, though, they then failed to sign a 3B free agent that could provide some pop to the line-up. Instead, the Giants claimed Jose Castillo off waivers (after he'd been cut by both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Florida Marlins - now there's a ringing endorsement).
Once you crunch the numbers, it appears that the players' stats are pretty similar, although Feliz does have the advantage on defense (Castillo's FPCT/RF/ZR is .931/2.35/.774; Feliz' is .960/3.05/.816). They've both grounded into a similar number of DPs (9 for Castillo, 8 for Feliz). Total bases are also close (57 to 53), as are RBIs (14 to 16).
Surprisingly, Castillo has more strike-outs - 20 to Feliz' 13. I say "surprisingly," since Feliz swings at all kinds of slop - high hard ones, balls in the dirt. Heck, I could imagine him swinging at a ball behind him if the game were on the line. Yet, Castillo manages to strike out more - he is impatient at the plate (but at least he's not swinging at pitches behind him - yet).
But despite all this, you'll never catch me wistfully wishing that we still had Happy Pete, though. I cringed every time he stepped up to the plate. At least with Castillo the expectations are extremely low, and he meets those low expectations nicely.
Unfortunately, the Giants don't have any third basemen in the minors that have any hopes of succeeding in the majors. So what are the Giants plans for the hot corner? Can we hope for a trade this season to bring a bat and defense to third base?
I enjoy any chance I get to listen to the Razor and Mr. T on KNBR, especially when they have folks from the Giants' organization on. Once you get past Ralph's long expository questions (where he seems to ask and answer half a dozen questions before he runs out of his own answers and finally settles on a question for the guy to answer), sometimes there are some interesting nuggets to be found. For me, one of those nuggets was the perhaps inadvertent admission that some of the Giants young players are, in fact, being developed up in the bigs, instead of in A-ball. For anyone who's watched a Giants game season, this isn't exactly news. But it was somehow satisfying to hear that the Giants are aware that their guys are in over their heads, regardless of the frightening implications for the players and the season.Yesterday, while interviewing Bobby Evans, the Giants Director of Player Personnel, Ralph asked about the goals for the team this season. Evans said that "It's a tricky thing. . . . With young players, you're going to have players that struggle. . . . When you're developing at a major league level, or finishing the touches of development, it's going to have its bumps in the road."And this is what it comes down to - development of the young players is occurring at the major league level, not in the minors, where you'd normally expect such development to occur. And that's why we are seeing boneheaded base running, sloppy defense, and guys with a poor approach at the plate. It also speaks poorly for the development of position players in the Giants organization if so few (or any?) of those players are truly ready for this level.Sure, we're getting some flashes of excitement. We haven't seen guys running hard around the bases like this in years. But at the same time, if we don't start seeing a general mastery of the basics by the kids, then we will have wasted yet another season. And we may have ruined the prospects for these guys by rushing them into the majors before they were ready.But as usual, I'm hoping to be proven wrong. Let's hope that by the end of the month, we see a team of guys that display at least a basic competence at the major league level. If not, then it'll be a really long summer.
After spending 10 days in the bullpen, with exactly zero relief appearances, Barry Zito gets the ball for a start tonight against the Pirates. Apparently, two bullpen sessions was all he needed to fix what ailed him. Do you buy it? Not me.
Maybe Bochy thinks that Zito would have a better return against a weaker Pittsburgh offense. Of course, Bochy made the announcement about Zito's start yesterday, before the Giants got whupped by Pittsburgh's "weak" offense. Can Zito fare better than Sanchez and Hennessey? I suppose that at least he won't have to hear the hometown boos at AT&T Park.
I'm skeptical that two bullpen sessions without a batter in the box were enough to take care of Zito's control problems. Zito says "I think you can achieve those things in the bullpen if you put yourself in that frame of mind. Yeah, you're not in a game situation, but you can achieve those things with a catcher." But what else could we expect him to say?
Obviously Zito needs to get out of the first two innings cleanly. I'd imagine that if he gets hit hard in the first inning in particular, his confidence will suffer enough to sink the game.
But I'm hoping to be proven wrong. I want to see the Zito that the Giants overpaid for. Although for tonight, I'd settle for him making it past the third inning.
The young Giants have added a bit of excitement to the team this season. Emmanuel Burris' smackdown on Carlos Ruiz at home plate to score in the fourth inning of today's game against the Phillies is something we haven't seen much of with the elder Giants of recent years (wouldn't want to break a hip, see). The effects of that play will be felt in the clubhouse for a while - that kind of thing can charge up a team. And it may have made Ruiz nervous during the top of the eighth inning when Aaron Rowand charged the plate on Jose Castillo's triple - Ruiz appeared to shy away from hard contact.
But on the flipside, the young guys are error prone. Today's example: Eugenio Velez. In the top of the 5th, Velez failed to dig out Jose Castillo's throw from third on Eric Bruntlett's grounder with no outs. Castillo was credited with an error, but it could just have rightly belonged to Velez.
And then in the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied and two out, Velez let a routine grounder go under his glove, to allow the winning run to score from second base. Ouch.
This is a game that easily could have gone to the Giants. At this point in the season, Velez has to make those plays. I am no fan of Ray Durham (especially his defense), but if Velez keeps this up, I may want to see some more of Ray, and less of Velez (I know - the horror!).
Velez will have at least tomorrow off to ponder his play today. Let's hope he spends some time working on his fielding basics.
Prior to the season, FSN Bay Area relaunched as Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. For the most part (with one glaring exception described below), the change has been limited to the microphone logos. The network kept Kruk and Kuip (the best in the business), although Dave Flemming is rotated in for play-by-play now from the radio side.
My gripe with the new management? The graphic at the top of the screen. The bar is Dodger blue. Hated Dodger blue, people! With a red accent. Neither of these colors are in any way related to the orange and black of my beloved Giants. Would it really be that difficult to follow the FSNBA mode of using orange and black for the graphic? I get that Comcast's corporate colors are blue and red. So fine, keep the logo in the corner of the screen the same - fly the colors there. But for the game summary graphic? Let's see some Giants colors. If I can get those, I'll even forgive CSN for those awful post-game broadcasts from ACME Chophouse.
