--M.C.
p.s. There's a season's worth of chances to say it, but I should have said it first thing: THANKS, BOCH!!
Monday, February 18, 2019
Bochy to Retire
Bruce Bochy announced today that this will be his final season as a manager. That ends much of the speculation surrounding him, don't you think? He turns 64 in April and 2019 will be his 25th as a big-league skipper. He'll have over 4000 games managed by the end of this year and only seven other guys have done that: Connie Mack, Tony LaRussa, John McGraw, Bobby Cox, Bucky Harris, Joe Torre, and Sparky Anderson. That's some remarkable company! Only ten guys have three (or more) World Series rings as a manager: Casey Stengel, Joe McCarthy, Mack, Torre, Walter Alston, LaRussa, McGraw, Anderson, Miller Huggins, and Boch. Again, not a bad bunch to be a part of.
--M.C.
p.s. There's a season's worth of chances to say it, but I should have said it first thing: THANKS, BOCH!!
--M.C.
p.s. There's a season's worth of chances to say it, but I should have said it first thing: THANKS, BOCH!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I guess we'll keep seeing a lot of Manny Machado: 10 years, $300M with the Padres. San Diego has a lot of young, cheap talent and their FO has indicated a willingness to spend money on beefing up the roster. The deal is in line with what most people expected. Hard to argue with taking a risk like that on a 26-year old who already has over 30 WAR.
Machado was the #3 pick of the 2010 draft (Harper was #1) and Drew Pomeranz was #5. Chris Sale(#13) and Christian Yelich(#23) came out of that same class. The Giants took Gary Brown at #24. Brown only had 7 PAs in his career, but he did appear on the 2014 NLDS roster. He pinch-hit for Yusmeiro Petit in the top of the 18th in Game 2 after Belt hit the homer off Tanner Roark. Brown whiffed, and that's the last time he appeared in an ML game. He last professional appearance was in 2017 with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the independent Atlantic League.
Of that draft class--50 picks including supplemental in the first round--18 of them have never played an ML game, and 17 of them have accrued less than one WAR. Yasmani Grandal, Noah Syndergaard, and Matt Harvey were also part of that class.
Josh Osich claimed off waivers by Baltimore.
Ray Ratto on Deadspin regarding Bruce Bochy.
Well that was a lot of word-smithing to say "Boch is great manager."
It is interesting to me that Machado chose a pitcher-friendly, power-suppressing park. We've heard for years that hitters won't come to SF because they don't want to see their numbers drop, but now we have one of the two best FAs decide on Petco. Maybe his time in LA convinced him that one could indeed hit HRs in the other NL West parks, the ones not called Coors or Chase.
San Diego is an up and coming team. They have a stash of farm system talent, a young pitching staff, and signed Eric Hosmer and Ian Kinsler during the offseason in addition to Machado. I don't thing they have the horses to knock off LA, but I would not be surprised to see them finish 2nd in the NL West. Plus, they have a bright future (something to think about if you sign a ten-year agreement).
They are counting on that low-cost youth brigade. Hosmer is being paid (according to Cot's) through 2025, Wil Myers through 2022, and now Machado through 2028 (he does have an opt-out). They've got something like $65M already committed for 2020. We've seen how that sort of thing has handcuffed the Giants. But the bulk of their 40-man is under team control for at least 3-4 years, and they consistently get high marks from the prospect-watchers (unlike the Giants). So they should be in a good position to field a competitive team. They will need, it seems, a real rotation piece or two, but maybe their young arms are better than I'm aware of. It certainly makes the NL West race more interesting.
When the Cubs won the whole thing in 2016 the assumption was that their young core (guys like Rizzo and Baez and Bryant and etc.) would bring them a run of titles. Well, they've had two 90+ win seasons since then and may have another this year but the cost of doing business keeps going up. They've signed expensive FAs like Heyward and Darvish and Lester and the young guys will be getting a chance for big paydays real soon. It will be a challenge for them to "keep the band together" and hope for another title shot. They'd probably be smart to deal those young, talented guys before they have to pay the really big bucks for them!
Winning is hard. Fielding a winning team requires a lot of patience and luck and sustaining a winning team is even harder.
Giants add Nick Vincent to the list of non-roster invitees. RH reliever, 32, 7 years in the ML with SD and SEA. Throws a cutter mostly and a 90-mph four-seamer that generates a lot of swinging strikes and fly balls. Kind of an under-the-radar guy but with some tools that might play beautifully in our ballpark. He's put up a positive WAR every season in the bigs.
Also added lefty reliever Fernando Abad, 33, 8 years in the bigs (HOU, MIN, OAK, BOS) as well as an 80-game PED suspension. Mostly a lefty specialist.
Giants are stockpiling the arms. I like it.
Post a Comment