That's what has me really excited. I would have sulked for a few months if Cain walked at the end of this season. But I would have kept writing. I would have re-named the blog "Don't Panik" or somesuch. Hey, we ought to have a contest: best new-but-not-necessary blog name! I can think of a few already. How about "Gimme a Belt" or "Oh Say Can You Gillaspie" or "Posey's Posers" or "Kings of King Street"? Actually I'd probably settle on something witty like "Madison Bumgarner Is Fucking Awesome" or "Madison Bumgarner Plays For Our Team And Not Your Loser Outfit " (dot blogspot dot com).
The reaction from Giants fans is elation, of course. We all want to see Matty retire in orange-and-black. FanGraphs' Dave Cameron has the only contrarian take I've seen*, comparing Cain to the likes of Carlos Zambrano, Jake Peavy, Dan Haren, Brandon Webb, Mark Buherle, CC Sabathia, and John Lackey. It's a mixed bag--will Cain be Haren/Sabathia or Peavy/Webb? Cameron suggests that risk > reward when you are dealing with pitchers, and that the Giants would be better off spending the money on hitting. It's a reasonable question--rarely is ANY player worth that kind of money and years. But I'm betting with the shooter on this one. Cain is a rare combination of youth, health, and talent. He was a big-leaguer at age 20 and has done only one thing since then, and that's improve. The organization made a colossal blunder with Barry Zito, and everyone but the suits knew it at the time. I thought--for a little while--that they would be gun-shy about doling out another Zitovian deal. But they pulled the trigger on Cain, and for that I'm very, very happy.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
*We haven't heard from Only Baseball Matters on this matter, yet.
2 comments:
I'm totally happy the deal is done. The amount is a little dazzling. I hope he doesn't change one bit. Let's assume he continues to get a little better all the time.
As I feared a number of years ago, the Zitovian deal that Zito received pretty much necessitates Zitovian deals to demonstrably better pitchers if we want to retain them on our team. I do take issue, however, with the prevaling sentiment that Zito is toast. As I understand it, he was experimenting with his delivery in order to get the ball to the plate more quickly, and has to tinker with it some more to keep the ball down. This sounds a lot like what Tim was doing last spring and he was hardly toast. Of course, Zito is closer to toast to begin with. We need Zito to be an average pitcher at least. We do not have the offense to hope for batting thunder in half his starts (or anyone elses') so we need him and Vogie to be credible. I do not see any reason why he cannot be. Yes, I know his record from the last couple of years and have been as frustrated as anyone by the times he has had short outings. But still, I do not understand why he cannot be at least average.
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