What a Breath of Clean Fresh Air

Benitez has indeed shuffled off to Buffalo and it appears a Reno boy is coming to the Giants. Whoever the Giants got was going to automatically become my favorite Giant but this is a nice little topper.

Benitez was bad but would have been slightly more tolerable if he had any idea how to fake humility. "I did my job" has taken on a new and sinister connotation. Ballplayers can always get away with that old chestnut, "You never played so you have no idea how good I really am", but even Superman strung out on bad Kryptonite can see through the "I did my job" bit. Benitez rarely did his job and "it was those other guys who soiled my genius."

Benitez is simply the most appalling example of the myriad of nasty issues facing the Giants. They still have a pretty crappy pen, they can put more guys in line at the AARP office than they can actually keep upright enough to perform poorly on the field. Things still look more than a little bleak but...I feel better already..

Through the Eyes of Children

I have a 7 year old son who thinks I am the smartest, bravest, and yes Virginia, coolest guy on this planet. We play nerf basketball and I can get to the cup on him every time..I dominate the plastic with impunity. Sure, I am 3 feet taller but it's a tough world out there. He is a remarkably cute kid but I have had way more girlfriends. I have more money in my wallet. I get to stay up past 8 o'clock, even on school nights!!! But this kid has the one thing I sadly don't..He is young and with the advent of modern medical science he actually has an outside chance of seeing the Giants win the World Series in his lifetime. I am jealous as hell.

I am dealing with a lot of guilt here. It's bad enough that my birth probably caused the drought. I was born in January of 1955 which apparently caused some sort of rift in the fragile fabric of baseball karma. But, I have also subjected my innocent and blameless children to the accursed wrath of the baseball Gods. I exposed them to the Giants. It's possible that my grown kids no longer believe me to be the smartest, bravest or even coolest guy in the neighborhood anymore. I blame the Giants in general and Brett Tomko in particular for that fall off the pedestal. I just hope they can forgive me one day.

How does a father explain to a child that the Rockies, yes those Rockies, just swept the Giants in SF for the first time ever..What an incredible body blow to the psyche that must be. Next he will be thinking there is no Santa Clause and Big Time Wrestling is fake. Where will the madness end?

I dropped him off at school this morning and he gave me a nice hug to start both our days off right. He is a sweet boy yet I am feeling that odd mixture of horror and pride. He pulled that Giants hat down a little tighter as he ran off to the playground. What have I done?

Drafted but Unsigned

The draft has been around since 1965 and the Giants have had their share of hits and more than their share of misses. Just for giggles and perhaps as a cheaper treatment than primal scream therapy, I decided to compile my all-time drafted by but unsigned team in Giants history. Bonds is also be the star of this squad. There were some others who chose to fore go signing with the G's but still put in time in the orange and black later on. Von Joshua, Rennie Martin and Bud Black fall into that category, some falling more deeply than others. So here goes...

Davey Lopes 2b drafted but unsigned in the 8th round 1967
Jody Reed ss 1(15) 1982
J.D Drew cf 20th 1994
Barry Bonds lf 2nd 1982
Pete Incavilia rf 7th 1990
Ron Roenicke 3b* 29th 1975
Greg Norton 1b some round in the 80/90's that I forgot to write down.
Toby Hall c 24th 1995

Brad Lidge cl 42nd 1995

I guess Bud Black would be the opening day starter.

Some pretty good players and some journeymen. Losing Bonds in 82 was a tough blow because he wouldn't join in the fun for 11 more years. Jody Reed was a first round pick who didn't sign..That's seldom cool and he did have a decent career.

Sure it's easy to lament the tragic misses who actually did sign on the dotted line.
It takes some real deep rooted issues to fixate on these guys. They say drafting is an art and not a science. The Giants management team embraced their right brain creativity in a lovely gallery of "Dogs Playing Poker" draft artwork.

* Yeah, I know Roenicke was an outfielder but the staff here makes all the rules and we decided he could handle the hot corner in a pinch.

Welcome McCovenites

I am going to watch the game now but I will get something new up today. Thank you all for stopping by. Very special thanks to Grant for adding me to his blogroll.

Bunts?

I am not a big fan of the sacrifice bunt. I understand there may be a time when it's a good strategy, particularly when pitchers are at the plate but mostly it's just giving away outs. Should this Giants offense give away outs regularly?

A few games back, Ryan Klesko had a big game and included with a jack and a double he had a magnanimous and fundamentally sound sacrifice bunt. But why? If memory serves, and mine seldom earns a fat tip for service, Randy Winn opened an inning with a double and Bochy had Klesko bunt him over to 3rd. By the way, I don't really know much about Bochy but he appears to embody a palette of colorless imagination that leaves me begging for the complexity of beige. However, that is a horse of a different color. I believe we were talking about sacrifice bunts.

Klesko's bunt worked. Winn got to third and eventually scored. There were compelling reasons to let ol' Klesko swing away too. Winn was already in scoring postion. Klesko tends to pull the ball when he hits it on the ground. Teams have taken to an over shift when he is at the plate so it's no secret. He is also a big strapping lug that can get an extra base hit setting up a possible crooked number inning. He may have struck out but Winn would still be in scoring position.

Instead, the Giants chose to give up a lot of the potential good clean fun of a big inning and engaged in a strategy that was already old and lifeless when John McGraw was a young manager. It was the safe thing to do. It's certainly been a time tested maneuver. I am not busting Bochy or the Giants for this. You see teams bunt that guy to third in the same situation quite often...It makes me grind my teeth almost every time it happens.

I fully cop to old fogeyism but even I am willing to embrace a far more judicious use of the sacrifice bunt. Swing that bat. Let's get a petition drive together.

You Had Me At Hello

Fearlessly jumping back into the world of 4th grade long division and small sample sizings, I thought I would look at the numbers posted thus far by the three-headed rookie monster. This plucky trio of Freddy, Danny and Kevie ( it's cool, we're tight) has combined for 107 pleasant and surprising official ab's since finding their way to Sesame Street.

AB 107
Runs 19
Hit 35
RBI 16
2B 5
3B 3
HR 1
BB 9
Avg .337
Obp .379
Slg .457
Ops .836

Try as I might, I just can't find much to complain about here. I may be falling in love. Of course, it's a long season and scouting reports work the room like Alyssa Milano at the All Star Game. The bad guys will figure out where the weaknesses party and exploit them cruelly. Whether the lads can adjust right back remains to be seen. The smart money would still counsel trepidation and foreboding as faint images of multitudinous busts burn like so many razor cuts to the eyeballs but I say let's live in the now, man. Well, done young Giants

So...Runs?

For no apparent reason, other than my own general inquisitiveness, I chose to look up the stats for the last several years to see how this Giants bunch compares in runs scored..Employing my admittedly weak long division skills, I divided the runs scored by the number of games played to get a per game average. I rounded off because my current level of geekiness is already way too high. So...

2002..4.8 runs per game
2003..4.6
2004..5.2
2005..4.0
2006..4.6
2007..4.4

What does it all mean? I don't know. The 02 team went to the World Series scoring at a 4.8 clip. For those of you who are math gifted: Is 4.8 runs scored compared to 4.4 a huge difference over the course of a season? It could be the difference from finishing 1 game out of the playoffs or playing for the ring.

Still, the 04 team scored at a 5.2 clip and finished out of the money. A quick guess would suggest the Giants didn't pitch all that well in 04. 05 is easy enough to understand. No Bonds. You could argue that he makes up a big chunk of that run scoring average all by his lonesome..

Anyhoo, the Giants are currently scoring at their lowest rate other than the Bonds-less season. But the starting pitching has been very, very good..The pen is up and down yet the Giants are scoring more runs than they are giving up. The big blowout over Colorado is driving that oddity. 500 teams don't usually outscore their opponents.

Do the Giants trade away a starting pitcher for a bat that can get them closer to that 5.2 runs they had in 04 or even the more modest 4.8 that got them to the seventh game? Again, I have no idea..

Oh, Those Base on Balls...

Numbers are weird. They are all orderly and well behaved but ultimately mystifying and magical.

Barry Bonds just doesn't do things the average Big League Joe does. When he is hot, he is otherworldly. He centers up every ball he hits and does more with the one or two hittable pitches he sees a game than anyone ever. That's a given. What makes him astounding is he also has the best slumps in the game.

Most guys go into a funk of ghastly and mythical proportion. They seem to always be 0 and 2 in the count and off balance. The resulting stats are as dismal as Cliff Clavin's babe conquest scorecard. But not Bonds. BB is 7 for 37 this month for a cool .189 batting average. 4 of those 7 hits are of the extra base variety. Other than the little dribbler to left a couple nights ago, Bonds has been hitting what he hits pretty hard during this drought. He is not striking out at an alarming rate and of course he is being walked at a relentless and astounding level. 19 walks In May!!!. When pitchers actually let him swing the bat this month, they are getting him out 81 percent of the time. Timid managers and nibbling pitchers ( and thank Gaia they are so nervous) are keeping Bonds more productive then almost anyone else on the team even through a grim stretch with the lumber.

Though his numbers this month are well below his norm, he is still getting on base at a .464 clip. His 4 extra base hits have kept him at a respectable .459 slugging percent. The Dude has an OPS of .924 during a slump! Who does that?

At the other end of the spectrum is Randy Winn. He has 23 hits this month alone. His average is .397. His slugging percentage is a very nice .534. When he swings the bat he is a dangerous hitter at the moment. Pitchers should be avoiding this guy, especially since the rest of the lineup isn't doing much this month. Yet, Winn has just 2 walks despite being in the middle of a smoking hot streak. His ops at .951 for May is only a fraction better than Bonds at .924.

Like I said, numbers are weird. To be certain, Bonds has a fearsome reputation and pitchers are afraid to give him much. Bonds will continue to be walked and an otherwise flaccid Giants offense will benefit tremendously from this generosity. Eventually, someone will decipher the code that unlocks the hidden secret which can only bring panic and despair to the land. Let's hope they don't figure it out any time soon.

You Really Like Me

Sports Illustrated has a feature in their magazine where they poll current ball players about various things, i.e. (Who has the nastiest curveball?) or (Who is the fastest runner?). In the latest issue the players were polled on two questions. Who are the most and conversely least friendliest guys in the game. Players could not vote for people on their own team Sean Casey was the overwhelming choice for friendliest player by his peers. 46% named him as the number one Mr. Rogers in the game. The next 3 on the list are Jim Thome, Mike Sweeney and Dave Roberts.

The least friendly list is interesting on many levels. The players voted Bonds as the least friendliest. He was the choice of 26 percent of his fellow big leaguers. Not all that surprising since Bonds gets bad press and ball players can be just as influenced by that as anyone else. Interestingly enough, Bonds polls much better in the NL west. The players who have the most opportunity to engage Bonds like him better. This doesn't surprise me either. The more often you interact with a person the more facets of their personality come out. I have never been closer to Bonds than a seat in the stands but his on field demeanor has always struck me as pleasant. He chit chats with opposing players, picks up a tossed mask for a catcher on the other team and high fives his team mates. Anyway, Bonds is Bonds and he was going to be on the list whether deserved or not. It's the next two names that are disconcerting.

The number two vote getter on the "this guy is a dick list" is the monumentally unloved Jeff Kent--Number 3 is the decidedly undelightful AJ Pierzinski. That's right, current and recent former Giants make up the Axis of Evil! I am not sure the general goodwill Roberts generates balances the force here. Unlike Bonds, who polls better among guys who know him better, Kent polls far worst with those who know him best. 30 percent of the NL West has this dude as the least friendliest.

I liked Kent when he was a Giant. He played hard and put up the numbers. AJ was pretty easy to despise early and often. As a fan, it really doesn't much matter to me what the players think. I usually like the whoever resides on the Giants roster at any given time and root relentlessly against those "other people". The names on the rest of the top 10 make that pretty easy.

4. A-Rod
5. Randy Johnson
6. Curt Schilling
7. Jose Guillen
8. Milton Bradley
9. Jason Kendall
10. Chipper Jones

So What Do I Know?

Right up until it didn't it looked like the Minute Maid Magic was still on full jones. Then, the ridiculousness of the park reared its silly little short porch. The Giants hoped they were getting a cute little number like this with their inviting band box feature in right. Fortunately, nature has a sense of humour and she willfully kills almost every ball not hit by a lefthanded hitter named Bonds.

Corporate Bell Park has emerged as a pretty fair yard for pitchers while not completely destroying offense. Bad players have more to do with that. Still, the place seems to cry out for a change in structural roster thinking. While the Giants understood fairly quickly that pitchers would do better and loaded up accordingly in the draft, it is only recently that Sabean has sought an advantage for the offense. Speed, speed, speed..Sabean still hasn't completely bought into the theory that patient hitters get on base more than brain dead hackers, but he has filled his farm with really fast guys.

Will this pay off eventually..I have no idea...It does seem worth a try, though.

The Happy Place

Like a tall glass of OJ to start your day, Minute Maid Park beckons with the promise of a bright new day. The Giants are sitting on a 20 and 5 stretch at the place and are coming to town ridng on a full on Freddy Lewis crest. The relentlessly .500 playing Giants have a chance to pick up a few wins.

Morris and Lowry are nice ground ball pitchers which goes a long ways towards negating the short porch and the sad little train. Lincecum is simply the karmic ramifications for a team playing in a field once named for Enron. To be certain, the Halfasstros must eventually beat the Giants in Houston at a furious clip to even things out but the feeling among the staff here is that the purge continues.

The Giants sweep and and fulfill their daily Vitamin C quota.

Tis' a happy place..

Happy Mother's Day

What a sweet day for the giants and their respective moms. I like the pink bats and the pink wrist bands but in a manly way..

oops..

That didn't line up very well. Sorry.....

If anyone actually reads this and has some technical know how, would you please drop me a line with suggestions on how to correct grievous nonalignment's in the future..Thank you in advance.

Cheery Theory

We're still in the small sample size modus here on May 12th but in a weird and twisted way the numbers may provide for a bit of hope for the moribund offense. If we go by the theory, perhaps tragically grasping for straws, that players eventually end up with stats close to their career averages, there may be some gold to be mined here. Lots of guys are performing under their norms.

.avg. .obp .slg .ops
Vizquel .242 .293 .290 .535
Career .275 .341 .359 .700

Aurillia .266 .313 .395 .708
.278 .331 .442 .773

Durham .268 .338 .382 .720
.281 .354 .442 .799

Roberts .216 .283 .371 .654
.267 .342 .371 .713

Feliz .248 .281 .459 .739
.252 .288 .437 .725

Molina .315 .350 .486 .836
.276 .312 .410 .722

Bonds' numbers can never be adequately compared with our limited knowledge here on Earth. His stats may be rather mundane numbers somewhere in the universe but not here.

But I digress...

According to my "Cheery Theory", we can reasonably expect Vizquel, Aurillia, Durham and Roberts to eventually hit much better. Winn should stay about the same and Feliz is eternal(and not in a good way). Only Molina may be subject to the laws of gravity. His numbers will probably drop unless he is having a career year..I would be in favor of that.

Of course, there are always surprises. Who would have guessed that dude Jacob would be invisible? Still, there could be a ray of sunshine in the threatening skies..

Or not....

Sometimes you just have to be lucky

A little reshuffling of the roster 6 weeks into the season is not a bad thing. You never know when injuries will pop up and it was clear that Linden and Niekro weren't much help.

At this point of the season teams aren't all that interested in trades so the Giants had to fill from within. Lincecum was a no brainer. He was dealing in Fresno and is a particularly shiny attendance draw for a stadium with more empty seats than usual. It's that pesky little problem of the lack of no brainer callups from the position player ranks that rankles.

Schierholtz is hitting very well and he needs to because he almost never walks. He also took a page from the Niekro playbook when he injured himself just as an opportunity with the Giants came open. Ortmeier is frighteningly reminiscent of Linden. Timpner is reputed to have a glove and some sense of what it's there for but also never walks or gets extra base hits. The other guys who may someday emerge are in the low minors. Last night Fresno ran out only 2 position players from their own system (Timpner and Knoedler which sounds like a juggling act from the Shrine Circus) and 6 career minor leaguers from other organizations.

So that leaves Freddy. For no logical reason, I am guessing Lewis will be one of those guys who is a better big leaguer than any sane person could reasonably expect. Every once in awhile a player just sort of puts it together at the right time and in the right situation. Dan Uggla is a recent example. He floundered around in the minors for 6 years never really impressing then had a great season for the Fish. Can Freddy be a guy like that?

I say, why not? The law of averages dictates that eventually Feliz will lay off a slider in the dirt and the Giants will get a real spark from one of their farm hands. Benevolent fortune has to smile sometime, doesn't it?

The Todd is gone

Though technically not a 1st rounder, Linden more than qualifies for the parade of busts the Giants have had with their premium pick outfielders. Painting from a palette of Steve Hosey, Adam Hyzdu, Calvin Murray, Dante Powell, Tony Torcato and Todd linden would tax Van Gogh. I am pretty sure I would whack off my own ear to get the Giants a nice studly young stick or two in the upcoming draft who won't have to spend years in the minors before lounging at the far end of the bench only to be DFA'ed in favor of a couple of equal or lesser clones.

I like Freddy, he can run and we don't have enough guys in the bigs named Freddy, but he is pushing 27. Ortmeier is a little younger but he is likely just keeping the seat warm until Roberts or Eric Davis become available.

Linden and Torcato were rude to a friend and me in a Scottsdale hotel once, and who could blame them, so I am not all that sorry to see him go..Still, I would like to see somebody, someday get to the majors in his early 20's and actually be good..He doesn't have to be great. I am not unreasonable. Solid is okay with me.

The Giants have had some success drafting and developing pitchers so maybe they could do the same with a position player.

Naw..Who am I kidding here?

Hi

I thought I might give this blog lashup a go. Eventually, I will figure out how to do stuff and link like a rabbit. I hear you can even post pictures and videos though the knowledge of the type of skill set necessary to pull those aces from my sleeve eludes me for the time being. I will figure it out eventually.

As for content, it will be mostly Giants meanderings but I can't be restrained, damnit! I will simply be compelled to comment on a wide range of madness.

I have no idea where this will lead...