Roster-ing

The Giants had some interesting decisions to make at yesterday's arbitration deadline and they decided to let go of starter Tyler Anderson and infielder Daniel Robertson. Catcher Chadwick Tromp and pitchers Rico Garcia and Melvin Adon, who are all pre-arb, were also let go.

The Giants offered contracts to outfielders Austin Slater, Darin Ruf, and Alex Dickerson. Pitchers Wandy Peralta, Jarlin Garcia, and Trevor Gott were also signed.

Arbitration-eligible infielder Donovan Solano and pitcher Reyes Moronta were both tendered contracts but have yet to sign.

I thought they might give Anderson another shot but with Tyler Beede returning from surgery I think they want to keep a spot open for him. I thought they'd hang on to Tromp as well and perhaps he will return on a minor-league deal. Buster Posey is expected to play in 2021 so that changes the backup catcher formula a bit.

The Giants 40-man roster is now at 35 players. Yaz, Dick, Solano, Buster, Belt, Longo, BCraw, Dubon, Bart, Ruf, Flores, Slater, FNG Jason Vosler, Gausman, Cueto, Webb, Suarez, Shaun Anderson, Rogers, Coonrod, Garcia, Moronta, Baragar, Peralta, Selman, Gott, and Beede make up the major-league portion so far (that's 27 players). Pitchers Kervin Castro, Conner Menez, Camilo Duval and Gregory Santos bring the list to 31, and the final four are outfielders Jaylin Davis, Luis Alexander Basabe, Steven Duggar, and Alexander Canario.

The Winter Meetings take place December 6-10. Originally scheduled for Dallas, they will be held remotely.

--M.C.

Back to business

The Giants issued a Qualifying Offer to Kevin Gausman. This year a QO is supposedly $18.9M. If Gausman accepts the QO, then the Giants have him for 2021 at that salary. If he rejects it he becomes a free agent and the Giants will receive draft-pick compensation if he signs elsewhere. The Giants have said they hope to work out a multi-year deal with Gausman and he has publicly expressed interest in a reunion.

The Giants need pitching in general and they need starting pitching in particular. Kevin Gausman pitched really well (1.3 bWAR, 1.5 fWAR, 3.09 FIP) in the abbreviated season and in fact had career-bests in H/9 (7.5) and K/9 (11.9) while keeping his walks and homers in line. He turns 30 in January. I'd like to see the Giants keep Gausman around. I'd like to see them bring back Drew Smyly as well.

The Giants outrighted Tyler Heineman, Joey Rickard, and Anthony Banda. Banda, a lefty reliever, had already signed a minor-league deal and will stay in the organization. Rickard and Heineman become free agents. Tyler Beede, Aramis Garcia, and Reyes Moronta were moved off the injured list and returned to the 40-man roster. Let's hope those guys are healthy for 2021.

--M.C.

The Texas Tromp Stomp

SF 9  TEX 2
Chadwick Tromp made his debut on Wednesday and struck out three times. Tonight he got two hits (including an RBI double) and two runs scored and also caught SIX different pitchers! It was a supreme bullpen effort, 5-1/3 innings with only two hits and no walks or runs and seven whiffs. And we can't forget the real game-changing blow in the 5th, a 3-run homer by Wilmer Flores that erased a 2-1 Rangers lead. It was all Giants after that. Darin Ruf was a beast, Mauricio Dubon seems to be finding his stroke, and Evan Longoria is obviously healthy. I note Brandon Belt sat against the lefty starter (Mike Minor). Dubon made a nifty play at short and then later made a couple of bad throws. It seems like the whole team is still figuring out how to play together. It's a challenge with all the shifts and the changes, although tonight Kap stuck with one crew, mostly. Steven Duggar subbed for Pence at the end, Hunter is still hitless for 2020.

The 'pen, after Logan Webb's 3-2/3, was Conner Menez (1-1/3), Shaun Anderson (1), Wandy Peralta (1), Tony Watson (1), and Sam Selman (1). Watson seemed to be back on track. Selman is up for the injured Sam Coonrod.

What a great win! Nine runs! Let's see some more of that.

Tomorrow's game is the same early start, 6:10 p.m. PDT. The Rangers have righty Jordan Lyles.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Giants Blast Past Padres

SF 7  SD 6
I was so wrong about this team! They CAN come back! They CAN hit the big home run! Wow, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around tonight's game. Let's see if we can hit the highlights: Johnny Cueto got hammered. Not much of a highlight--he threw 87 pitches to get 11 outs. Trailing 6-2 after four innings, the Giants used Tyler-power (Anderson and Rogers) to put up zeros from the 5th through the 9th. Meanwhile Alex Dickerson hit a solo homer in the 6th and Donovan Solano hit a three-run game-tying bomb in the 8th to set up Mike Yastrzemski to be the hero. Yaz had homered in the 3rd inning and he wasted no time in launching the game-winner leading off the bottom of the 9th. I did not think this team was capable of such a power surge and I did not think this team could fight back from an early deficit. It is especially gratifying to win a game in which the putative ace of the staff got knocked around. (Let's hope JohnnyC finds his mojo!) Not to mention the Padres threw their ace and he only lasted five innings.

What a great win! It was nice to see Brandon Crawford break out with three hits. He kept the rally going in the 8th before Solano's homer. That blast is the clutch-iest clutch hit of the young season. What a great win. Did I say that already?

The Giants have not announced a starter for tomorrow. The Padres are going with RH Dinelson Lamet who won his last start with five strong innings against the D-Backs on Saturday.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.


update: AmyG says Kevin Gausman is starting tomorrow.

Perspective

In 2007 the Giants took Madison Bumgarner with the 10th overall pick in the June draft. Ben Kaspick posted on his twitter feed some screenshots of reactions (from the McCovey Chronicles blog) by Giants fans at that time:

You gotta love it. Here's more:

The moral of the story is that fans don't know jack! Perhaps it is better to say that I don't know jack and even "experts" are just guessing. The draft is a crap shoot and all you can hope for is that the guys doing the picking have worked hard and done their best. In a few years we'll know the results. Until then I'm happy to have new blood in the system.

Notables from the 2007 draft include #1 David Price, #2 Mike Moustakas, #5 Matt Wieters, #14 Jason Heyward, #27 Rick Porcello, #34 Todd Frazier, and #48 Josh Donaldson. There were 64 picks total if you include the supplemental round, and the Giants had FIVE more after the tenth (Bumgarner) pick. They were Tim Alderson (#22), Wendell Fairley (#29), Nick Noonan (#32), Jackson Williams (#43), and Charlie Culberson (#51). Those look like whiffs until you consider that Alderson was traded for Freddy Sanchez and Culberson was traded for Marco Scutaro.

MLB owners are assholes. Just in case you weren't sure which side of the labor divide I'm on!

--M.C.

Seven

The Giants had seven picks overall, six on the second day of the draft:

#49 Casey Schmitt, RH 3B from San Diego State,
#67 Nick Swiney, LHP from North Carolina State (a teammate of Patrick Bailey),
#68 Jimmy Glowenke, RH SS from Dallas Baptist (a Div II school with Div I baseball)
#85 Kyle Harrison, LHP from De La Salle High School in Concord,
#114 R.J. Dabovich, RHP from Arizona State,
#144 Ryan Murphy, RHP from LeMoyne College (a Div II Jesuit school in NY).

Those are the FNGs along with yesterday's 13th pick, switch-hitting catcher Patrick Bailey from NC State. I suppose we'll get lots of post-draft analysis by all the experts and we'll get to find out whether they did a good job or not! Or we can just wait a few years and see who makes the bigs!!

Welcome aboard, newbies. GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Patrick Bailey

The Giants select NC State catcher Patrick Bailey with the 13th pick. If you wonder why the Giants would draft a catcher two years out of three you should take a look at the career arc of catchers! If I were running a ball club I would platoon at catcher. Never let a guy catch more than 100 games in a season, even better max him out at 81. Catching is too important and you can't expect guys to take that much physical abuse. MLB streamed the draft live for free, and the goddamn thing is a hideous spectacle, but I had to tune in--briefly--just to see what the Giants did.

Welcome aboard, Patrick!

--M.C.

Welcome, Javier!

The newest (and youngest) member of the Giants is Javier Alexander Francisco Estrella. He's a 16-year old shortstop from the Dominican Republic. Here's the rule governing eligibility:

Foreign-born players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and other countries are free agents. They may sign with any Major League club during the international signing period, which begins July 2 and runs through mid-June the next year. To be eligible to sign a contract, a player must be 16 years old at the time of signing and turn 17 years old by either 1) September 1 or 2) the end of his first professional season, whichever is later. Players also must register with the MLB Scouting Bureau.

That's from Cot's Contracts, a site all baseball fans should be familiar with! Note that this does not cover Japanese players, the NPB has a special arrangement ("posting system") that determines if a player can sign with MLB. Residents of the USA (and its territories like Puerto Rico) and Canada are subject to the draft. They have to be high school graduates, too.

I'm not sure why kids from foreign countries have more freedom than kids from the States, but that's our system! I think it is stupid. There should be the same rules for everyone. In fact, I would get rid of the draft entirely, and make all ballplayers free agents as soon as they stop playing amateur ball. Ideally they would not be able to sign contracts until they were legal adults, but I guess that's what agents, scouts, and parents are for. (Not to mention the notorious buscones.) Some wag called all that jockeying in foreign countries to find baseball talent a "field of schemes." Indeed.

Regardless, the Giants have a new international prospect. He's been compared to Fernando Tatis, Jr. That fellow made the majors last season with the Padres at age 20 and kicked ass.

Interestingly, MLB has considered skipping the 2020 amateur draft. After all, no one is playing ball so scouting isn't happening and if you can't scout you can't evaluate talent. What a great time to get rid of this anachronism.

--M.C.

More cuts

The Giants sent Joey Bart (and infielder Chisthian Adames) to minor-league camp. Giants fans might be disappointed but it seems like they want Bart to have a little more seasoning. Kapler was explicit about what he wanted Bart to work on and FZ said that having Bart in the bigs this year was "a reasonable goal for him and us." They don't want him to sit. They want him to play, not be a backup. It's the right call.

RHP Enderson Franco and OF Joe McCarthy were optioned to AAA Sacramento. Aramis Garcia was put on the 60-day Injured List--he had hip surgery last month.

The Giants picked up another player off waivers, this time Jose Siri, he will report to minor-league camp and start the season at AA Richmond. He's a RH center fielder from the Dominican Republic who turns 25 in July. He was signed as a 17-year old by the Reds but never cracked a big-league roster. He was picked up by the Mariners earlier in the off-season and then released.

Johnny Cueto did not have a good outing today (9 H, 5 R in 1-2/3 IP). Oh, and you must watch Yapson Gomez! He's a lefty reliever with a crazy windup. I believe he's a minor-league free agent--he's not on the NRI list. Let's hope they find a spot for him in the system.

--M.C.

Mauricio

I saw this bit and it made me think of this guy:

"I can really, legitimately see him playing center field quite a bit," Kapler said Friday. "I think earlier in camp I was saying we're going to take more of a wait-and-see approach. I think at this point he has demonstrated he can play center field, he can play shortstop for us."

I'm sure all us old-timers remember Derrel Thomas (aka "The Bug"). He was the number one pick in the draft in 1969. The only other 1st-rounder from that group that made an impact in the majors was Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky. Thomas made a career out of being versatile. In 15 seasons (almost 1600 games) he logged over 4800 innings at second base, over 2400 in center field, and over 2300 at shortstop. He played for the Giants from 1975 (arguably his best season) through 1977. He came up with the Padres but was best known as a member of the Dodgers (getting a ring with them in 1981).

Speaking of the Dodgers, the super-utility player is something they've been featuring lately with both Chris Taylor and Kike Hernandez. Even their big sluggers (Muncy and Bellinger) move around and have two or three positions they can handle. Both Gabe Kapler and Farhan Zaidi worked in LA and it should not be a surprise that they'd like to have that kind of versatility on the roster.

Mauricio Dubon was not a #1 pick and was not in the majors at age 20 like Thomas. He was a nobody, really, a 26th round pick, and he has had to climb the ladder (with three organizations) for the last seven seasons. But the team seems high on his abilities and wants him to think about a different role, something more than a traditional infielder. There is a lot more pressure on an NL roster to have positional flexibility as the DH option is limited to inter-league play. Here's more from the article:

The concept is a simple one: Dubon has a chance to impact the Giants every single day, and they would like him to do it at different spots, allowing Kapler to mix and match with his veterans. Dubon has just over 100 big league at-bats and some organizations might prefer for a player like that to settle in at one position. But the Giants feel Dubon can mentally handle it, and there's little doubt that their best chance -- perhaps their only chance -- at having a competitive lineup is to get creative. They'll look a lot better against left-handed starters, for instance, if Dubon can play center, with Donovan Solano at short and Wilmer Flores at second. It'll be much easier, too, for Kapler to make mid-game double-switches if he's confident Dubon can slide from position to position and fill the gaps.

I like it. I think ballplayers can do lots of things and I like to see them get the chance to display not only their athleticism but their growth and learning. If that makes me sound like a teacher--well, guilty! It could be really fun watching Dubon this year. Plus he has a cool name. I mean, "Mauricio" lends itself well to chants (Mahhhhh-REEEEEEEE-see-ohhhhh) and I suspect he's the only one in the bigs with that moniker. Of course, he still has to hit. That's the thing. You want to stick, then make some noise with your stick!

Trevor Oaks is "opening" against the Indians this afternoon. Also, pay attention to righty masher Darin Ruf who is making a case to be the 26th man.

--M.C.

Eight

I'm assuming the Giants will have an 8-man bullpen. Obviously at least one of those guys will be long relief/spot starter. And we may see the "opener" strategy used as well so that may impact who gets picked. As always, take a look at the contract status and number of options remaining. Sometimes that's the only difference between a guy who makes the cut and one who does not.

Tony Watson is a lock. He's signed for the season at $3M. Fellow southpaw Wandy Peralta is also signed ($0.8M) for 2020 and will certainly open the season with the big club. He was claimed off waivers last September. Lefty Jarlin Garcia is another waiver claim that will likely make the team. Both guys have flashed strikeout stuff in Spring Training.

Righties Trevor Gott and Tyler Rogers (the submariner) will probably be there, too, as manager Gabe Kapler mentioned they were both important bullpen pieces. Jandel Gustave was sent down and he seemed to be in the running for one of the remaining three spots.

Roster Resource likes Shaun Anderson, Sam Coonrod, and Dany Jimenez. Anderson might be anything from an opener to a closer but is still only 25 years old. Coonrod has been hit hard so far and that might open a path for someone like Enderson Franco or Carlos Navas. Dany Jimenez is a Rule V pick from December so if he makes the roster he has to stay on it. He can't be optioned (even though he has three options) and must be waived to clear the spot. He is 26 and has 200 IP of pro ball (no ML time) experience. He is a strikeout artist (11.7 K/9) and has been used as a closer.

--M.C.

Cuts

These guys were optioned to AAA:

RHP Melvin Adon, IF Abiatal Avelino, RHP Jandel Gustave, LHP Conner Menez, LHP Sam Selman, IF Kean Wong, and OF/1B Chris Shaw.

These guys were re-assigned to minor-league camp:

RHP Tyler Cyr, C Ricardo Genovese,  RHP Sean Hjelle, RHP Jake Jewell, RHP Luis Madero, RHP Try McNutt, LHP Sam Moll, RHP Raffi Vizcaino, OF Jamie Westbrook, and RHP Sam Wolff.

That's 17 players gone from the original 72. Of the remaining 55 there are 21 NRIs.

--M.C.

Five

The Giants have four pieces of a five-man starting rotation: Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto, Kevin Gausman, and Drew Smyly. Smardj made a nice comeback last season after a lost-to-injury 2018. He is a free agent next year. Johnny Cueto lost two seasons (2018 and 2019) to injury and has not been himself since a stellar 2016 campaign. He is coming off TJS and a lot of hopes are riding on his recovery. He is signed for this year and next. FNGs Gausman and Smyly were picked up in the off-season. Gausman signed a one-year deal for $9M. Lefty Smyly signed a one-year deal for $4M.

The fifth spot was supposedly Tyler Beede's to lose. Unfortunately the young flamethrower is now out with an injury. Reports say a sprained ulnar collateral ligament as well as a flexor strain. The UCL is the Tommy John Surgery spot so it is ominous news. It's very unfortunate as it seemed like Beede was finally putting his game together right at the end of last season.

That means Andrew Suarez, Logan Webb, Conner Menez, and Dereck Rodriguez have a shot at the rotation spot. All four have two options remaining. Enderson Franco, with three options, is also in the mix. Non-roster invitees Trevor Cahill and Tyson Ross will also get a look. Tyler Anderson is recovering from knee surgery and most likely won't be available until June. The southpaw was picked up off waivers from Colorado and signed a one-year $1.8M deal with the Giants in December.

With five starters that makes an eight-man bullpen. There is a lot more uncertainty there and I will give it a few days before I attempt a roster breakdown.

--M.C.

Thirteen

With a 26-man roster for 2020 I expect the Giants to carry 13 pitchers and 13 position players. By my reckoning there are ten position players who are locks to make the team thus leaving three openings to be filled.

The old guard will man the infield: Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Evan Longoria, and Buster Posey. FNG Wilmer Flores will surely be one of the infielders. In his seven-year ML-career he has logged at least 1,000 innings at all four non-catching spots (1B, 2B, 3B, SS). He's right-handed with a league-average bat (.742 OPS, 102 OPS+, 101 wRC+, .318 wOBA) but raked lefties (.337/.367.615) last season. Expect to see a lot of Flores and in multiple roles. Another infield spot will most likely go to Mauricio Dubon. He was primarily a SS in the minors and has played 2B as well but the word is he will see time in the outfield, too. Obviously Buster will need a backup and I've no idea (Rob Brantly? Tyler Heineman? a free agent like Russell Martin?) who that will be.

That's seven guys. In the outfield I expect to see Mike Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson, and Hunter Pence. That's the ten spots. Steven Duggar has two options left and unfortunately has yet to hit well at the major league level, so I'm not assuming he makes the team. Pablo Sandoval would likely take one of the three remaining spots but I'm not sure if he will be healthy by Opening Day. That means Donovan Solano or Yolmer Sanchez could stick as a utility player with two OF spots (Chris Shaw? Austin Slater? Jaylin Davis? Billy Hamilton?) still up for grabs.

One relatively unknown youngster that has opened a few eyes is 3B Sean Roby. He turns 22 in July and has not yet advanced past A-ball but is 5-for-7 this spring with 2 walks, 2 doubles, 3 runs scored, and 6 RBI. The 2018 12th-round pick from Arizona Western College has never been highly regarded as a prospect but still has plenty of time to develop his game. He might crack AA this year.

I'll take a look at the 13 pitchers later.

--M.C.

$$$

Craig Edwards has a piece on FanGraphs covering projected 2020 team payrolls. I'm stealing a graph from there:

The Giants have the 11th-highest payroll. In 2019 it was 9th, in 2018 it was 3rd, and in 2017 it was the 4th-highest. The last time the Giants were below the top ten was in 2010 when they had the 11th-highest payroll. Check out the history here.

As far as off-season spending goes, the Giants (approximate) outlay of $30M ranks tenth. It doesn't seem like they've spent that much, but if you break it down (Cozart $13M, Gausman $9M, Flores $3M, Pence $3M, etc.) you can see it. Again, check Cot's Contracts for details.

The point of all this is the next number. How much did the Giants payroll drop from last season? Roughly $20M, which is the 6th-largest dip. Only the Red Sox, Mariners, Cubs, Indians, and Brewers have seen bigger drops. The Edwards article has the graphs if you need a visual.

The Giants are looking for an even bigger drop next season. Only Posey, Cueto, Belt, Crawford, Longoria, and FNG Wilmer Flores are under contract for 2021. That's $95M committed, $60M less than the (roughly) $150+M projected for 2020.

The Dodgers were able to pull off the Mookie Betts deal because they had both a surplus of talent and payroll space. They will exceed the CBT threshold (I should just say "salary cap") this year but have about $100M coming off the books for 2021 which will give them the ability to sign Betts for the long-term. The Giants want to get to that place. They want to have the payroll space ("flexibility" in front-office jargon) to go after big free agents. But talent is still a problem. There is a big talent gap between the Giants and their rivals. LA can trade away prospects and good players and still have a formidable team and a deep farm system. The Giants are re-stocking their system of course but it's not like the rest of the NL West teams are sitting on their arses!

--M.C.

Top 100

MLB posted their Top 100 Prospects list. Wander Franco, a SS in the Rays system, is first. He's only 18 but has two years of pro ball and is expected to be in the majors in 2021. The next guy is middle infielder Gavin Lux (in the Dodgers system). He's 22 and will likely play on the big club at some point this season. The third guy is Luis Robert, a White Sox outfielder. He's already signed a six-year, $50M contract but has yet to make his ML debut.

Giants fans will be happy to know that Joey Bart is listed at #14. There is a catcher in front of him, Andy Rutschman in the Baltimore organization, he's fourth, just behind the three already mentioned.

If Bart turns out to be half as good as Buster Posey then he will be a very good player (if he sticks at catcher). Isn't that crazy? We have, I think, enormous expectations about Bart. Most of them are likely unrealistic. I hope Bart gets to show what he can do and not what he can do in comparison to Buster Posey. I'm excited about him and expect to see him this season.

Marco Luciano, our teenage SS from the Dominican Republic, comes in at #35. OF Heliot Ramos (#65) and LHP Seth Corry (#99) are the other Giants on the list. Arizona, LA, and San Diego each have five players on the list as well. Colorado has one.

--M.C.

Winter Meetings Begin

Seven years and $245M for Stephen Strasburg to stay in DC. What will it cost to keep Madison Bumgarner in San Francisco? More now, I suspect. Starting pitching is always a premium product--you want some, it'll cost ya. But that matters not. The Giants have oodles of money and can spend it if they want. We don't know what they want, that's the problem.

I saw a tweet from AmyG that says the Giants will sign a starter this week. And, they are meeting with MadBum's reps this week. I have to assume the Giants want to improve their starting pitching.

She also tweets that Aramis Garcia is slotted for Buster's backup spot now that Stephen Vogt has left (he's on the D-Backs). This is a good opportunity for Garcia and I hope he makes the most of it. The big talk is about 'player development' which I assume is industry buzz for 'teaching' but at the major-league level. That stuff mostly used to happen in the minors, but things have changed. There is more emphasis on teaching at the top level and of course there is much more information available. I hope that means more young players will get chances in 2020 and that they will get the coaching they need to be their best. I don't know how that stuff works, I just hope it does work.

M.C.

The New Manager

Don't forget, the Giants are hiring a GM as well. That presents a chicken-and-egg problem, as FZ put it recently (from Andrew Baggarly on The Athletic):

Ordinarily, the general manager would be working hand in glove with the president of baseball operations in a managerial search. The GM is the primary quartermaster for day-to-day roster needs, so it’s imperative that they have a close and communicative relationship with the skipper.

Except the Giants are hiring a GM, too.

“You want to know how the GM is going to work with the manager, but you also want to know how the manager is going to work with the GM,” Zaidi said. "So it’s a little bit of a chicken and egg. But, you know, we will very much have that in mind that those two are going to have to have a close relationship, and we have to have confidence they’re going to be able to work together."

I suspect the lists for both jobs might have some overlap. A lot of the personal qualities are similar. Zaidi has said that managerial experience is not a prerequisite for the field job (Aaron Boone had no experience coaching at any level before the Yankees hired him), so the same might be true for the desk job.

So how do you replace Bochy? You can't. You can hire a new manager--not a replacement. Identify the things you want from a manager and find that person. Giants fans will have a hard time viewing the new guy in a new light--they'll want to subject him to a checklist of Bochy comparisons. Farhan can't do that. Obviously Boch possesses many of the personal qualities needed to succeed at the big league level, but Boch is Boch. I don't want an ersatz Boch. I want a new person with their own story.

I really think Buster Posey should be the Giants manager. I've no idea if he entertains the idea, but it seems like he has all the experience, skills, knowledge, and gravitas necessary. So the Giants should hire a guy for a few years (Bam-Bam?) until Buster quits playing and takes the reins.

But that probably won't happen. He'll go back to Georgia and run for Senator. In the real world the Giants will hire a guy no one has heard of. Don't be surprised if the guy they get is a surprise. I don't keep my nose that close to the industry buzz so I have no real insight. DrBGiantsfan, who blogs at When the Giants Come to Town, has a breakdown of names you might look at. He's always thorough and thoughtful.

Baggs made the point in another article that if you want to know what kind of guy the Giants will hire look no further than the one FZ helped hire in LA: Dave Roberts.

Managing in MLB is hard. There is a small pool of people with the skills and passion needed. Even guys with all the goods on their résumés fail at the task. FZ is known as a process-oriented person and likes to "trust the process" and go with the outcome it generates. Roberts, for example, was not considered a favorite going in, but he came out as the number-one guy.

I can live with that. I was happy when the Giants hired Farhan Zaidi and I think it will be fun and interesting to see how he goes about creating the next-gen manager and general manager for the franchise. I want to be open-minded and not have a preconceived notion of who these people "ought" or "ought-not" to be. Frankly, I don't know any of the people involved and can only get the same information all of us get who are not part of the business. So it makes no sense to form opinions based on other peoples' opinions.

A lot of other teams (Mets, Padres, Pirates, Cubs, Angels, Royals) are looking for a skipper, that could make the process take a while, and of course many people won't be available until after the post-season. The Winter Meetings are scheduled for December 8-12, so I'd like to think the Giants would have at least a GM at that point. We'll see!

--M.C.

77

SF 8  COL 3
The Giants take the rubber match with the Rockies this afternoon with a team-wide effort. Tyler Beede looked good at the start, whiffing seven and walking none in his 3-1/3 IP. He did not allow a hit or a run. Unfortunately he had to come out of the game in the 4th inning with the Giants up 1-0. Apparently he injured himself but I've seen no details so far. Nice to see him throw well regardless. The Rockies tied it against Burch Smith, the Giants went ahead 2-1, Smith gave up another run, then the Giants went up 3-2, then 4-2, then the Rockies came back to make it 4-3 in the top of the 8th. The home squad then scored four in the bottom half and it finished 8-3.

Mauricio Dubon was the hitting star with two doubles and a homer. Mike Yastrzemski had pinch-hit homer plus another RBI hit later. Kevin Pillar had two hits, and clutch doubles from Alex Dickerson and Aramis Garcia added more runs to the tally. Smith had a rough time in his stint, and Enderson Franco gave up a run, but Sam Coonrod, Fernando Abad, Jandel Gustave, and Ryan Barraclough (who closed it) were unscored upon. Like I said, it was a team effort.

That's 77 wins for the season with three to play. Last year they won 73 and the year before 64. Johnny Cueto goes tomorrow night at 7:15 against the Dodgers.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Jaylin Jack

SF 2  COL 1
Jaylin Davis is in the bigs because he can hit homers. He hit a heapin' pile of 'em at AAA this season, and the expectation is that he'll hit a few in the show. It took 13 games and 33 ABs but he finally got the big fly and it won the game in the 9th for the Giants. It was another anemic offensive display by the home squad, but the pitching was very tough and that kept it close and that gave the good guys a chance. Jaylin Davis is 25 years old and is from North Carolina and has over 1800 PAs in the minor leagues, mostly in the Twins system. He killed it (1.112 OPS) at Rochester (International League, AAA) and at Sacramento (1.105 OPS) and earned his call-up. Let's hope we see more good stuff from Davis--that was only his fourth hit! He was acquired in the Sam Dyson trade. His walk-off winner tonight made history: only twice before had a first career homer decided a ballgame.

Tyler Beede goes tomorrow afternoon, 12:45 Pacific.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.