The Giants get swept by the Padres (6-5 Monday, 4-3 Tuesday, and 5-4 Wednesday) and their losing streak is now seven games. They finish the month of August 10-17. They are done. If a ray of hope was still shining it has now vanished. They are tied with the Diamondbacks! They will have to fight for third place. A .500 record is likely out of the question.
So, what to do? Roughly a month (32 games) of baseball remains. The rosters only expand by two players in September, it's not like it used to be with a dugout full of prospects and no-names. But it wouldn't hurt to see some young guys get a few reps. David Villar and Heliot Ramos come to mind. Maybe we should get a look at what they can do. Heck, I'd give Kyle Harrison a few innings on the mound.
I should note that the only two position players signed for 2023 are Brandon Crawford and Tommy La Stella (they also have an option on Evan Longoria). The other players in the fold are starters Alex Wood, Alex Cobb, and Anthony DeSclafani. Carlos Rodón has an opt-out and most folks figure he will exercise that. Next year's roster has a lot of question marks. Youngsters Logan Webb, Camilo Doval, Joey Bart, and Thairo Estrada will be key pieces so it will be good to see how they perform in the final weeks. Guys like John Brebbia and Jakob Junis have probably earned a call-back (both are still arb-eligible), and I think the team wants to keep J.D. Davis. It's hard to know what will happen to veterans like Wilmer Flores and Joc Pederson. But that's what the off-season is for!
Right now we have to ride out the rest of the way with what we've got no matter how painful. A strong finish won't change the pennant races but it would give fans like me a lift. So, let's hope the team turns it around and gives us a few weeks of some fun baseball.
The Phillies come to town tomorrow night, game time 7:15 Pacific.
Go Giants!
--M.C.
14 comments:
Fire Gabe Kapler...pleasssse!
Don't be ridiculous. Kap isn't going anywhere, nor should he. The last thing the Giants need right now is to panic. They put FZ & Co. into place to rebuild the franchise and the best thing ownership can do is to keep the faith and continue to support the process.
Kapler is not the problem. Lack of performance from key players (Belt, BCraw, Yaz, Wade, La Stella, most of the bullpen, etc.) doomed this team. A new manager would not have changed that!
Our old pal Steven Duggar was DFAd by the Angels.
Giants made a trade with the Astros for a minors OF named Lewis Brinson. Probably gave them cash as the SF-player side of the deal was not announced. Brinson was a former 1st-rounder who never really got it going in the bigs. He's 28 and will go to AAA. Teams can still trade minor leaguers after the MLB trade deadline.
Giants need to dig deep in the pockets to keep up with the Dodgers and Padres. We can do this I know ownership thinks this is hard but that is the sport of baseball if you look at the top teams That’s what they do spend spend spend including the farm system
We may think that this is a long process and that Farhan needs a lot of time to make this team competitive. In a market like SF, he needs to use a strategy other than dumpster diving in an attempt to find diamonds in the rough. He needs to make sure he signs Rodon to a multiple year contract, and make sure he adds another ace type pitcher to join Rodon and Webb. Also free agents like Flores and Pederson need to be kept. Without them we would be struggling to catch Colorado this year. Relief pitching is not something that can just be filled in by anybody, a few solid acquisitions to our pen would be a good idea. We do have some minor leaguers on the way, but some will be more likely ready in 2024. The team also needs to become more athletic. Although Duggar and Dubon were not lighting up the place on offense they were rather athletic. It is helpful to have your lower tier fill in players to be athletic. Some of the plug-in players (righty lefty matchups) would be much more effective with some solid healthy stars buttressing the line-up. As long as he keeps signing the DFA player of the day, at least Aguilar seems like a player that could offer some immediate help. I do not know what happened to Yaz on offense, as his defense has been outstanding, but perhaps a new hitting coach would be helpful. This year with the ball possibly a tad less lively, the launch angle swing for many with marginal power may be counterproductive. 25 homeruns last year may be 13 or 14 home runs this year, all at the expense of much lower batting averages. Several teams have seemed to figure this out and take advantage of this and seem to hit against the shift more. We also need some players who have a history of remaining healthy. The defense has fallen apart like a virus too over our players gloves. It is like long covid on defense. Finally in a division with the dodgers and padres, and perhaps a surging young diamondback team, the giants need to re-assess their strategy. They cannot live off the success and strategy that made them great in 2021. Also as a baseball superstitionist, I cannot rule out that much of this is just the curse of the Dubon trade. Finally the giants loss the other day, when Crawford did not get the final out of the game when a runner was caught between second and third, and then we went on to lose, was something I would have thought a rookie would have done. New ways to lose are a sign of a new Shakespearean tragedy.
I was at the Game on Wednesday - we had a big group from work there. Even the Official Scorer had a bad day - Pederson muffed (i.e. had it in his mitt & dropped it, even though it was a pretty straightforward play) a fly ball early in the 3-run 5th Inning, & Wood should have only been charged w/ one Earned Run total. Instead, all 4 Runs off of him went into the books as Earned. And, Kapler burning up 2 legitimate right-handed PH's (Longoria, then PR Slater) in the 8th was totally bizarre. Since it was fairly clear that Hader was coming in the 9th, it sure would have been nice to have had Slater available to pinch hit for LaStella or Gonzalez. I know that Longoria is gimpy, but they could have thrown in a Pitcher to PR, or something. Or, since Slater had to come in for defense, had Slater hit in the 8th, & saved Longoria for the 9th.
But, that's just one shitty Game in a shitty Season. As far as the future goes, I say:
- Anyone who's half been paying attention for the last few Seasons should know for certain that, even though they could afford it (not that that makes it right), the Giants have no intention of spending to compete w/ LA & SD. Total pipe dream. Not 'the model' that they are using.
- The above applies double for Pitching. They are not going to sign Rodon to a long-term deal. Based upon their FZ-era experience, what in hell would make anyone believe in a fantasy like that? Rodon will go off to wherever they are spending money this off-Season.
- They will continue to make a thousand mini-moves, trying to get incrementally better, but never taking any big leaps forward.
- They will continue to suck the life out of 'controllable Players', until they can't wait to head off to LAD / SD / NYM / TOR / CHC / BOS / LAA / TEX, when the opportunity arises.
- About once every 7 or 8 years, they might luck into a decent Season. because a few Farm System folks turn out to be good Players. Of course, don't get attached to them, because they'll be gone shortly.
- If Mike Yastrzemski is a starting OF on the Giants next year, I will do the Jon Parsons - Chili Davis treatment. This guy was a nice story for about 1.5 Seasons, but he was already a late bloomer. Then, even though he has basically sucked worse & worse, & is getting older & older, they keep throwing him out there to perform his more & more sickening 'get into an 0-2 hole, maybe work the count a bit, then strike out looking' routine. Of course, he's a microcosm of the whole Team concept (to be fair, this a predominant concept in all of MLB these days) of 'there's more honor in whiffing looking than in putting the ball into play', accompanied by the faint dream that 'if I get my pitch, I can really drive it'. People know what not to pitch to guys like him, so they see less & less of 'their pitch'.
Just looked up Brinson's numbers - he should right in:
- Career BA of .199 (bad)
- Career OBP of .248 (shitty)
- 25 HR's in just over 1,000 MLB AB's (promising)
- Whiffs almost 1 out of every 3 AB's (uh oh ... another guy looking for a pitch to drive, but almost never getting it)
- Not a very good defender (ugh)
- Multi-time castoff by MIL, MIA, HOU organizations (wondering what the attraction was)
Chili Davis had a 19-year career (9997 PAs!!!) and a .811 lifetime OPS. Maybe we should have appreciated his talent when we had the chance instead of ripping on the guy. He played 2435 games in the bigs--same as Harmon Killebrew. They are tied for 77th all-time. You have to be a good player to stick around that long. (He also has 3 WS rings.)
If Mike Yastrzemski is as good (or as bad) as Chili Davis then we have ourselves a real ballplayer. Perhaps we need a better standard--how about giving Yaz the Johnnie LeMaster treatment instead?
Slater pinch ran, because he was still not able to hit with his finger injury. Kruk and Kuip have said that the giants will try to keep Rodon. So we will have to see. I have no idea if they have any inside knowledge but it is more likely they do, than I do. Farhan will have to modify his model, or he will not be around long and will lose his genius status. Having a team that has the most bases loaded situation, but still can't drive them in, shows that drawing all those walks are great but usually a team needs to hit better than 233 to drive a lot of these guys in. How many times have the giants had guys on second and third with less than 2 outs and the next 2 guys strike out, even against non-strike out pitchers. Is the big money still in the RBI? We have no one with more than 60. Flores is a really nice supplemental utility player, and I think he is a keeper for a few more years. Pederson slid into that catch and it was not easy. It did get into his glove but it was far from a routine play. I keep seeing posts in various venues criticizing Pederson for being a lousy left fielder. I do not find that to be the case. He gets to a lot of balls that many of our Post Barry Bonds left fielders would not have gotten to.
I feel rather honored to be mentioned in this post. However, while Ron clearly understands my Chili Davis reaction, MOC’s “analysis “ is quite disappointing. Are you using his lifetime stats to make my irrational guttural response look like bad baseball sense? Are we all supposed to wait til the numbers bear out our emotions? No thank you. My ritualistic and overly dramatic response was never good baseball or logical at all really. I knew that, kinda. And actually it wasn’t “ripping on the guy” but rather my way of removing him from my life. So, go for it if you must Ron. I back you 100%. Good choice too.
Also agree with all other Ron comments, every 8 years or so sounds about right. Not exactly dynastic but hella entertaining.
I'm no longer interested in "this guy sucks" or anything like that.
I'm interested in "who is this guy?" and "what baseball skills does he bring to the table?"
Most players aren't going to cut it. Most of them will fail. A very select few will last in the game and be able to have a real career.
I think watching players grow and evolve is interesting. And I like rooting for them to "make it" and establish themselves.
Baseball is already a cruel enough business--the game will take care of itself. The players who fail to perform will get weeded out. They don't need me to pile on with my two cents.
Jon's analysis of my visceral remark was spot on, &, personally, I was OK w/ Chili Davis. But, the essence of the response boils down to predictability of certain aspects of either ineptitude or unrealized promise. Naturally, we were all disgusted, when Chili went on to fulfill his promise wearing other uniforms. With Yastrzemski, it's more about organizational predictability, more than any animace toward the Player, himself. He has been a very poor Player for 2 full Seasons now. But, it's mostly because the Giants have let him dig his deep, irreconcilable holes. As I've stated in several ways lately, the modern Game is losing me. And, watching Mike Yastrzemski whiff looking over & over again is emblematic of a bigger disgust.
And, sorry:
- That Pederson play happened right in front of where we were sitting.
- I am an OF, & that was an easy sliding catch. He'd probably agree that he would have caught it 98 times out of 100.
He probably would have caught it most of the time. As some of Crawford's errors have been this year. One ball popping out of a glove does not make a bad fielder. I have even heard on a recent video Kuip criticizing Pederson's fielding. Of course the metrics do not seem great either, but I find fielding metrics to be rather inexact at best. Even the Say Hey Kid made some errors. Darren Lewis rarely did. Alex D. last year in left was nowhere nearly as good as Joc in left. Ruf was also not as bad as advertised but certainly nowhere nearly as good as Joc. Watching every game, I have seen him make a few mis-steps but overall playing a rather good left field. Metrics be damned.
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