Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Merry Christmas . . .

. . . and a Happy New Year.

I skied yesterday in a lovely snowstorm and when I was in the lodge I saw Santa. I went over and said "all I wanted for Christmas was snow, so thanks!" He shook my hand and said "no problem."

Of course what I really want for Christmas is for the 2019 Giants to be awesome! Am I right?

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.

--M.C.

17 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

Giants add another arm: Jamie Callahan 24 years old, right-hander with 9 G ML experience. Supposedly he has some big heat/strikeout stuff.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Couple of Giants old-timers talk about today's game.

Ron said...

Happy New Year!

Unless something dramatic occurs in the next month, this is shaping up to be the most disgraceful off-Season in the history of the Giants. Let's recap:

- The (wealthy & lucrative) Team has sucked for the last 2 Seasons. Really, 2.5 Seasons.

- The All-Star Catcher is coming off of a career-threatening operation. The #1 Starter has had 2 marginal Seasons. The #2 Starter probably won't even pitch this year. The rest of the Starters? Not much there, except for, maybe, Rodriguez. Even Derek Holland seems on his way out. The Outfield is more-or-less non-existent - Duggar is 'exciting', but not really that exciting. The Infielders are all performing at levels well-below expectations ... & they're all getting older. The Bullpen appears to be the strength at this time, so there's that. But, for some bizarre reason, we want to break up the solid left-handed side of the Bullpen by trading one of them??? Our upper Minor Leagues are not stocked with MLB-ready talent.

- We have a shiny, expensive new GM Genius (or whatever his Title is).

- With all of that as back-up, we have acquired ... pretty much no one. Well, Rupp, Gerber, Moll, Bergen, Ferguson, Venditte, & Callahan. Which is ... pretty much no one. One or two of them might make the Roster. Venditte is a novelty & may be the best of the bunch (I did see him pitch last year on TV - pretty amazing). No big Foreign signings, no Trades, no Free Agents. Nothing (yet).

- Based upon the above, there is no reason to expect that the Giants will win more Games this Season. In fact, it is highly likely that they will win fewer Games. If we were a small market Team w/o a successful recent track record, that would be barely acceptable. For a large-market Team that has taken great zeal in separating its fans from large sums of money at every turn, that is unacceptable &, frankly, abusive. Well, it is suddenly out in the open that our Principal Owner is a Tea Party Libertarian dickwad (another insult to the fans in Northern California), so I suppose that we should have seen it all coming.

- Yay ... f-ing schpilkas. More like f-ing bupkas.

Just go to your corner, & count your money, Charles. I'm sure that the recent Tax Bill was great for you.

Zo said...

And a happy New Year to you, too!

To be fair, though, you should mention the 10 million dollar scoreboard upgrade.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Here's an interesting take from a guy over at MLBTR.

We all know the Giants situation. What we don't know is the best way to improve going forward. Bryce Harper? Better draft picks? Trade Bumgarner? Obviously a lot of things, there's no one path. I'm willing to go along for the ride, whatever it is, because I think FZ is a good choice and that he'll wind up doing good things for the club.

Zo said...

John Shea in today's Chronicle: Second Best, Why Not?. In the paper itself, the title of the article was "For Giants, Not as Bad as it Seems." Which is not a very positive spin, considering the Chronicle found a lot to "look forward to" for the dismal 49ers. The hypothesis is that the NL West is so weak that the Giants might finish not too poorly. I'm not sure I buy it. It also reiterates that the Giants are unlikely to make a major signing. I would like to know what happened with Kikuchi. Did the Giants make an offer or simply pass? (Kikuchi is a Mariner.)

I think the Giants could be much better by doing nothing, I think the injuries played a big part. The key is "could be". They need to add an outfielder to even have a shot at third place in a division that assumes Arizona is in total rebuild (and I am not so sure San Diego won't be showing some big strides forward this year). That outfielder is not apparently going to come from our farm system, so he has to come from elsewhere. To be any better also assumes that Duggar and someone like Williamson have decent years in ADDITION to a new outfielder. Like Ron, I am mystified why there is an assumption that we trade our bullpen although we clearly have to do something and if it's our only strength, then I guess we have to go there to make a trade.

And we also need starting pitching. I think Derek Rodriguez and Chris Stratton were both saviors last year. Even if they pitch well again (and I don't know why articles I read assume they are bullpen material when we only have 1 other healthy starter) we still need two more. So I look for 2 free agent signings, an outfielder (not Bryce Harper) and a starter. The hitter free agent market will loosen up once Scott Boras stops fucking around and Harper and Machado sign. No idea what we will do to find a fifth starter.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Markets are slower these days. Front offices are spooked by long-term deals. Shorter term deals then require a higher AAV, but that has luxury tax implications and so there is a disincentive to offer those. If players were free agents sooner, eliminating the nonsense of arbitration, we'd have more movement in the marketplace and more opportunities for teams and players to hook up and make mutually beneficial deals. And teams would take risks on players because they won't be stuck with them for too many years. I think a lot of high-spending teams are pulling back from the check-writing and trying to find talent in other places and be creative with contracts to keep payrolls manageable. It is not just being under the cap or resetting the cap, it is having flexibility under the cap in case the big money needs to be spent at a critical juncture.

Ron said...

As currently constituted, we are probably the worst Team is baseball. So, we're all OK with that?

Zo said...

No, don't be insulting. The only way to account for "worst" is by record. Seeing as how we do not know what the 2019 team is for any team, in 2018, 8 teams finished with a poorer record than the Giants, and we tied Toronto. So we are tied for 9th worst. I understand your frustrations, I am not optimistic, either.

Ron said...

The 8 Teams who finished w/ poorer records are eithertrying to do something about it, or lack the means to do something. We, on the other hand, have the means, but are sitting on our thumbs (while getting older). Show me some sign of life, & I'll re-consider.

Ron said...

And, no, I don't mean spending millions on Harper or Machado. There are plenty of other ways in which we could get incrementally better, or, at least, get some great prospects. For what seems like the 50th time in the last few years: What happened to our vaunted International recruiting? We don't to get either the big names or the less prominent ones anymore.

M.C. O'Connor said...

My emotional state vis-a-vis the San Francisco Giants has ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT on the performance of said Giants.

Zo said...

A pretty good article by Jeff Passan on ESPN that backs up what Mark says, above.
"Why the Baseball World is Waiting on Manny and Bryce"

nomisnala said...

The giants sell out nearly every game, the sell a ton of merchandise and food, and seats are not particularly cheap. There is no reason that the giants cannot provide their fans with a reasonably competitive team. Are we going to sacrifice this year, or are we going to be competitive. A question for you insiders, (if there are any), what is the plan for 2019? So far I see almost nothing, except a lot of talk about our new Genius Guru. Are we on a five year plan? What is the deal? Some of us do not want to wait until we are 105 years old to find the giants a legitimate contender. Give us some hope if you know of anything that is significantly hopeful.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I don't think we'll ever know what "the plan" is. The Giants are a private company and like most private companies keep things close to the vest. Plus they are in direct competition with 29 other private entities and "loose lips sink ships" and whatnot. So it does not bother me that the fans don't know what the fuck is going on because we have never really known and we probably won't ever know (unless we worked for them). All we have to go on is the press releases from LarryB and whatnot. They SAY they want to be competitive, we can either believe them or not. There is an incentive, of course, to tank a season: getting better picks in the June amateur draft. I hope the Giants don't do that, but the way the market is rigged it is (somewhat) understandable that teams do it. If you give a business an economic incentive to do something, they are going to do it even if it is the wrong thing! (That's just another reason to dump the draft, but that's not my point.)

M.C. O'Connor said...

As fans, not "insiders", this kind of stuff is all we get:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/brewers-giants-have-reportedly-discussed-madison-bumgarner-trade.html

M.C. O'Connor said...

Breyvic Valera is the latest addition. 26-year old switch-hitting utility player from Venezuela.