Random Thoughts on 38-39

On May 24, 2009, the Giants lost to the Seattle Mariners and fell to 20-23. After that they won four in a row and were never worse than .500 the rest of the way and finished 88-74. In 2008, the Giants lost their first game and were below .500 for the entire season. Since the advent of division play in 1969 (44 seasons not including this one) the Giants have had 19 below-.500 teams. The longest stretch of above-.500 seasons was 14, from 1958, the inaugural year in San Francisco (the 1957 NY Giants were a sub.500 team), to 1971, when they won the Western Division. The next longest was from 1997-2004 (8 seasons). The longest stretch of sub-.500 teams was four seasons, from 1974-1977 and again from 2005-2008. The best player on the 2005 Giants was Noah Lowry, the team's number one pick (#30 overall) in the 2001 draft. They drafted Matt Cain number one (#25 overall) the very next year. The Giants have also had two three-year sub-.500 stretches: 1983-1985 and 1994-1996. Throw in 1972, 1979, 1980, 1991, and 1992 and that's 19. Of course that means there's been 25 winning seasons since 1969 (and 36 since 1958).

The Giants are 3-1/2 games from first place and 3-1/2 games from last place. The defending champs are fighting it out with the most expensive team in baseball history for the bottom of the division. Raise your hand if you saw that coming.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.

Alomar, Blyleven elected to the BBWAA Hall of Fame

There is just not much about the Giants off-season to get incensed about. Sure, you can quibble about Huff's salary, or mildly lament the overabundance of outfielders, or speculate on what might happen in Spring Training, but really, it's pretty quiet. I mean, no real nasty arguments, no WTF moments from Brian Sabean, no angst turning to dread turning to fear as the season approaches.

So let's start bitching about the Hall of Fame selections!!!!

Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar were the only players elected to the BBWAA Hall of Fame. I have no problem with either of these selections, although I wonder why Blyleven's election took so long. Also, a lot of players were NOT selected. Most notable among them, in my opinion, is Mark McGwire. With less than 20% of the vote, this was clearly an anti-character vote, which is so, so important (apparently) to just ever so many of the writers. Some other guys not elected: Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Jeff Bagwell, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Dave Parker, Edgar Martinez. I'm not saying that all these guys should have been elected, but some of them give me pause; Tim Raines and Barry Larkin. Probably Jeff Bagwell. Definitely Big Mac.

But here is why this is worth getting excited about. The balloting brings out the baseball writers' explanations of how and why they voted. And these logically twisted, bizarre rationales can only be responded to in two ways, by anger and by laughter. Here are a couple of examples. And can you believe that BJ Surhoff got two votes? BJ Surhoff! Barry Stanton, ESPN, cast one. Here is Deadspin.com's take. Not enough to get you mad yet? How about this guy who is apparently without sin, so able to cast stones. But my favorite has to be our own Bruce Jenkins. Not so much for his selections, or his support for them, but for this sentence alone: "They'd be serving lemonade at the superstar's banquet while the above mentioned guys posed for oil paintings." (They are Jim Thome and Rafael Palmeiro. The above mentioned guys are Don Mattingly, Will Clark and Keith Hernandez.) I just love this sentence, my mind reels with the thought of what FireJoeMorgan could do with it. (Sorry, it is not on the innertube yet, check back.) Bruce, you've made my day.

Those who ignore the future are doomed to repeat it

I received an intriguing e-mail yesterday from a fellow named Victor Chi. He had this to say:

Congratulations to you and your colleagues at "Raising Matt Cain" on producing a terrific site. We thought you might be interested in having it be a part of the SportsFanLive network.

SportsFanLive.com is a sort of Facebook for sports fans. It hosts blogs, aggregates news, assembles links, et cetera, all with the goal of attracting sports junkies. It has ads, of course, which I imagine is how it generates income. It has been around for about three years. Here's the Giants page. Lots of blogs are part of larger networks and run ads--just click on several on the blogrolls here and you'll see. I'll admit that kind of stuff is often annoying, but at the same time the content--the writing and unique perspective--doesn't suffer. According to Mr. Chi, RMC would still maintain full control over content. They (SFL) would be responsible for ads and the network linkages. It would generate some very modest income (of which SFL would take 50% "plus expenses").

At this point in my life, I don't need the income. Not that I don't like money. I do. It's just that I have a full-time job. RMC is an amateur passion. I've always hoped that it could generate a readership that could ultimately act as a springboard to "bigger and better things" for yours truly. I want to write full-time when I retire (not that far away), and RMC gives me a creative outlet and a great audience.

I wanted to share this information with all of you--fellow contributors, friends, commenters, guests, lurkers, casual observers, followers, and fans--because you've made the site what it is. I love to write about the Giants, and the fact that so many more people are reading these days is very, very gratifying. I suppose I just talked myself out of this "partnership" with SportsFanLive, only because I never imagined such an invitation would come along so soon! I started RMC on the 25th of September, 2007, so we have not even covered three full seasons yet. I still feel like a bumbling newbie most of the time. I expect the on-line world of blogging and news websites and ads and all that will continue to change and evolve and many new and exciting things will emerge from the vast virtual flea market we all like to be a part of. And one day something will come along and I'll bite. Then again, I may bite on this one, too. It's 0733 and I'll be late for work if I don't leave RIGHT NOW!

--M.C.


p.s. I'd appreciate any thoughts or comments by folks who have experience being a part of one of these blog networks.

One 3-run HR beats four 2-run HRs

It's the mystical power of the Weaver Bomb that does it. Hit a 3-run HR, your odds of winning go off the chart. It almost doesn't matter what the other team does. That's as reasonable an explanation for tonight's game as any. Score 11 runs--with this offense--and lose. Of course, it wasn't like we threw our best arms at them, but fourteen runs? That 7-run 6th inning was a bad trip, and we just had to sit there and endure, there was no remedy for it.

We'll need Tim to be Tim tomorrow. Maybe Garko!Garko!Garko! can keep his power stroke going, too.

10-run extravaganza!

Yesterday I exhorted the Giants to get it going with the sticks and beat that pesky Livan Hernandez and sure enough they did! It was a bottom o'the lineup frenzy with Winn, Rowand, and Renteria accounting for 9 hits and 6 runs. (You know it had to be good because I actually used their names instead of the many witty, clever, and unflattering noms de saison I usually assign to them.)

Joe Martinez was sinkin' sinkers most craftily and dodgin' bullets most luckily and Ol' Boch took the big leap and sent Olympic Nate up there in the 6th to get The Big Hit and whaddya know he smoked one that coulda, shoulda, and woulda been a grand salami in a lotta yards. Two runs later we had a lead we would only pad for the rest of the night. I have to say that the bullpen made me a tad squeamish. We got big plays when we needed them, though, like Howry's K of Sheffield.

We got the crucial split in NYC. Tim goes tomorrow, and I predict he will get the elusive 13th win that's plagued our two big guns. Cincinnati is a .427 club--way worse than the Mets. We have to whup on their sorry asses if we want to stay in this damn race!!

Pause/Still

I got one of those buttons on my DVD/VCR combo player. Gotta take a piss, hit "pause." Gotta refill the whiskey glass, get some more cookies, gotta settle one of those "is that Kevin Bacon again?" arguments, I'm all over the "still" control. What does this have to do with the MMIX Giants? Uh, well, everything. For starters, there's Dave Roberts. We are paying that guy $6.5 million to be a fifth outfielder. We've got a 6'2'', 215-lb. 25-year old who is out of options and he plays outfield. Ol' Boch is excited that he will be our fourth outfielder. Wow, that's building for the future. We've got the slowest man in the major leagues starting at catcher and pencilled in at cleanup (in 11 seasons he has a .415 SLG, the league average is .432). Does his career OPS+ of 88 excite you? We've got the nation's most exciting catching prospect in our system, and we get another goddamn season of Señor Muy Lento. Can you say space-filler? Placeholder? Ol' Boch loves this guy. Expect 140 starts, 550 PAs, and 400 outs. We've got three youngsters competing for the same job. One of them could play third at least as well as Rich Aurilia, Juan Uribe, or even Joe Crede, but we will make him work for a job that's his to lose. Our third baseman is a catcher who has 154 minor-league games at first. And we don't have a first baseman. But we do have Randy Winn, who plays outfield. His lifetime OPS+ is 102. He's locked in at RF for 2009 (at $8.25 million). The MMIX Giants are like a World Cup soccer team--we'll play real hard not to lose but we just don't have the guns to win. They're like the hors d'oeuvres you get at a fancy restaurant--you don't want to fill up and spoil the expensive meal. I'm not going to cover the ultimate placeholders--Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand--because my VCR "still" button defaults to "stop" after five minutes. By the time these clowns are no longer Giants they'll already be replacing Blu-Ray.

The good news? Our division stinks. A ballclub that can scare up 85 wins could go to the playoffs. And I'm excited, damn excited about the season starting. But 2009 is a space-filler unless we can get a stadium-wide chant going:

D-F-A!! D-F-A!! D-F-A!!

/link

All You Need To Know

The San Franicsco Chronicle today tells you all you need to know about the 2009 Giants. Bochy foresees Molina in cleanup spot again. Bengie Molina batting clean-up. After 2008, Molina Still bats Fourth. Going Into 2009 with Molina as the Clean-Up Hitter. No matter what you do, it always comes out the same. I won't bore you with the description, from Bochy, of the upcoming line-up, but really, go there yourself if you want to get even more depressed than the headline. Yet, the accompanying articles, with the exception of Bruce Jenkins' "I Don't Care What Ballplayers May Have or Have Not Accomplished When I Cast My Hall of Fame Ballot", are all about the pointless distraction du jour, CHASING SABATHIA. And Randy Johnson! I can see it now, the Giants finish 2009 with a team ERA of 0.79 and a .435 winning percentage. They go down in history as the weirdest team ever. Maybe I am just too short-sighted and uncreative. Maybe CC can play first and bat clean-up on days when he isn't pitching, when he can pitch and bat clean-up. Maybe what Bochy really meant was that "Unless we sign CC Sabathia or someone with some real power, we might wind up with the regrettably sucky sitution where Bengie Molina bats fourth all year again, which will probably result in a net lower performance level than last year, although I like the way he swings the bat." Sure, CC would be a great addition. So would Alex Rodriguez and maybe we can trade Aaron Rowand straight up for Matt Holiday and Eric Chavez. Maybe the face of Jesus will appear in some dust bunnies and I can make some real money. Or maybe the Giants will sign CC for big bucks, trade Matt Cain and/or Jonathan Sanchez for some hitters and make Bochy eat his words. Literally. And you know the worst part? I actually agree with almost all of Jenkin's picks and pans. But not Bruce Blyleven.

RIP Merl Saunders

The Chronicle had an obit today for Merl Saunders. I got to see Merl play at the old Keystone in Berkeley when he teamed with Jerry Garcia in Reconstruction. That was 1979, I was a college boy at Cal. The Giants had completed an improbable winning season in 1978, the "Little Orange Skateboard," led by Vida Blue and Jack Clark, had a long run in first place before the LAtriners crushed our vain hopes and we finished six out. We had even higher hopes in 1979, that spring we were probably giddy at the thought of another good run. Alas, Joe Altobelli's boys went down in flames, 71-91. Joe was gone before the season was over. Jerry was a big part of the soundtrack of my life then. I've always associated the Dead with the Giants. Living a couple of blocks from the Keystone on Francisco Street, I got to see Jerry and Merl together (with John Kahn, Ed Neumeister, Ron Stallings, Gaylord Birch in "Reconstruction") several times. I worked that summer at JC Penney, just a few blocks down Shattuck Avenue.

Merl was a unique and creative artist, a relaxed and gentle showman. He was as psychedelic as Jerry, and could take you places with his spacy solos, but his grooves were what I remember. Merl was the perfect foil for the mercurial hippie genius, keeping the tunes grounded, laying down the guts so Jerry could take off. They made a memorable pair.

The picture is a scan of an album cover, one of my treasures, a 1973 Fantasy double LP. It features a wonderful "Harder They Come," Merl's rolling, rippling organ spurring Garcia to anguished, bluesy heights, and Merl coming back with a driving lead to finish it out. Sublime stuff.

Merl Saunders was born in San Mateo in 1934. He was a fixture on the San Francisco music scene for forty years. Thanks, Merl, for giving this Giants fan some back beat!

Requiescat in pacem.

Memo to Sabes: turn off microphone

But, as Giants general manager Brian Sabean said appreciatively of Frandsen last month, "He's a baseball player."

Goddamn, I been wonderin' what the GM thought of our youngster, AND NOW I KNOW!!!!!!

Frankly, I'm relieved. I was beginnin' t'think he'd forgotten poor, young Kevin. But now that I know that he knows that Frandsen plays baseball (and not the fookin' pan flute, fer chrissakes), I can rest easy.

What If?

Everyone come through the storm OK? Good. Let's play what if, shall we? What if Brian Sabean hasn't just been sitting around guzzling lattes, but actually has a deal in the works. What if the deal involves a team like the Yankees, who would trade a Hideki Matsui, who would consent to play first base, for a Noah Lowry, and maybe a Jonathan Sanchez or some other reliever, or maybe even a couple players including a Matsui for three Giants, but what if the Yankees didn't want to pull the trigger on that deal because they were waiting to see if they could get their hands on another player like maybe a Johan Santana but because the Twins weren't through dicking around, the Yankees didn't want to make a trade for a Lowry because a Lowry would be their second choice? What if that were the reason for the great silence emanating from the Giants organization and not Sabean's inability do to something besides hope a Rich Aurilia comes up with something better than pithy quotes? What if somebody somewhere has to make a deal before either that same somebody or somebody else will make a deal with Brian Sabean, because a Noah Lowry is neither somebody's nor somebody else's first choice? What if dust bunnies were dollar bills?