Bhaakon

I hope they find him unharmed and get the perpetrators. Apparently he was taken right out of his home, though there's very little info so far (as you can probably tell from the fact that this links to a tweet) Does anyone know the list of Giants playing/living in Venezuela?

It turns out that the Giants forgot to trademark their script "San Francisco" logo back when they started using it in 1993, allowing an east bay clothing maker to swoop in and register a nearly identical logo last spring. Oops. See the article for a comparison of the two logos. Between this, the stuff dredged up during the Neukum "retirement" debacle, and the payroll embezzlement, I'm getting the impression that the front office is rather poorly run in general.

Robin O'Connor embezzled $1.5M from the Giants' front office and player payroll. I can only assume that she was emboldened by the lack of statistical knowledge among her superiors. edit: fixed the link

Usually I ignore Jim Bowden, but he actually put up a somewhat interesting piece "scouting" each GM's trade-deadline approach. Many of the descriptions are very generic ("professional," "straight shooter," etc), but Sabean's is not: "Often times will delegate trade negotiations to assistant so he can stay non-biased. Old school that relies heavily on Dick Tidrow and top evaluators. Loyal, hard-working, knows players and has as much character as the players he acquires. Tremendous ability to hire veteran baseball people with special baseball skills." Emphasis added. We all new that he delegated contract negotiations to Coletti, but trade negotiations as well? That seems a little weird, to be honest. It's nice to keep an objective view, but I could see why Beane called him the master of the dry hump if this is his style; having an underling without authority to pull the trigger negotiating trades is bound to lead to a lot of false starts. I wonder who the designated negotiator is.

The Mets just traded Frankie Rodriguez and cash to the Brewers for a pair of PTBNLs. So turn your rosterbators up to 11, the fire sale has begun.

The Giants have opened at home in only 5 of the last 21 seasons, the forth fewest in MLB, and the fewest among teams who don't play in cold weather cities or domes. Only the Cubs, White Sox, and Red Sox have fewer home openers over that span. The A's have opened at home in 15 of the last 21 seasons.

Baseball America lists what each team spent on international amateur free agents in 2010 (excluding Cuban defectors, including deals still pending approval). The Giants spent 849K last season, the fourth least. I was sort of hoping that their international efforts would go up as their draft position fell.

I thought this answer from from Blue Jays GM JP Ricciardi was interesting. He refuses to name names, but the timing fits the supposed Rios trade from a couple season ago (if so, it means that the Giants had agreed to the trade): "But I had a trade done a couple of years ago where the trade was finalized, I won’t mention the players, but a pretty prominent player. Had him traded, everything was all set, told the president this is what we are trying to do, kept him in the loop. I went back, already signed off with the team, I said, I’ll just get right back to finalize, let me run it by my president. I went and told the president and the president told me, You know what, I’m a really big fan of that guy, and I think the fans are, too. I think if we trade him, we’re really going to catch it. And I said, OK, it’s your call. I said I recommend we do this, but he said no, and we didn’t trade him and the guy we could have traded him for is absolutely tearing it up right now. So, that’s why you can’t be a fan when you make those choices.".

A new twist on an old favorite.

"DeRosa, who underwent left wrist surgery last October, believes he's healthy enough to play now. But the Giants' projected left fielder has eased back into action by facing only coaches in batting practice... DeRosa admitted that his wrist feels sore as the day lengthens. "But it's nothing that would keep me from playing," he said, pointing out that he coped with his injury after hurting himself by swinging at a Randy Johnson pitch last June 30 against the Giants." 1st half 2009: .261/.334/.443 2nd half 2009: .237/.299 /.421 Maybe the Giants might have learned something about letting guys play injured. Yeah, I don't think so either.

There's an interesting article on Baseball Analysts using pitch f/x data to analyze ball blocking. The author uses pitch type and location data recorded to come up with an expected passed ball/wild pitch rate and compares it to the catcher's actual rates. Long story short, Gregg Zaun and Kurk Suzuki tie at -32.1 PB/WP (fewer is better) over two and a half years, Bengie Molina is second to last with +30.2 PB/WP (for lack of a better term, Posada is last a +36.4). On the whole, these represent about one win above/below average over the last the two and a half seasons. Miguel Olivo, one of the names being kicked around to replace Molina, has a virtually identical +29.9.

Here's a quick preview of a baserunning evaluation that's due to appear in the next Bill James Abstract. No surprise, Bengie Molina is the worst baserunner in baseball. Hes' given up -104 runs on the base paths since 2005. To put that in perspective, he's been 114.9 Runs above replacements with the bat over the same span, so he's given up virtually his entire value as a hitter back via his terrible baserunning. There ares some issues, primarily that virtually every starting catcher is a bad baserunner, and Bengie's probably only given up more like 30-50 runs over the average catcher (I'm guessing here, the list only shows the best and worst 5), but it's another note on the long list of reasons not to want Bengie back. The surprise: Winn is at +90 since 2005, 5th best in baseball. I knew he was decent, but damn, he's virtually tied with Ichiro. Good thing too, since the Giants needed him to offset Bengie and rank 5th in baseball with +77 team baserunning runs.

Mark Cuban shows some interest as a speculative suitor for a Dodger team that seems increasingly likely to be sold. "Frank McCourt contends he is the sole owner of the Dodgers and insists the team is not for sale. Jamie McCourt contends she is a co-owner, and her lawyer has said she has lined up financing for a possible bid to buy out her estranged husband. Cuban bid unsuccessfully to buy the Chicago Cubs and has expressed interest in buying his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates. He said his interest in the Dodgers would be conditional on the ability to buy a controlling share as part of an ownership group. "I’m not a fan of debt-driven acquisitions," Cuban wrote. "If a unique situation came up where I could contribute capital to buy out a majority shareholder and gain control, with existing shareholders or note holders staying in place, I would consider it."'

"Both Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson have rejected the Pirates' contract offers, and as of Sunday, neither has come back to present a counter-offer. The absence of any sort of counter-offer, general manager Neal Huntington said, does not leave the organization optimistic that a deal will be reached with either player in the coming days." Sanchez's offer was a ridiculous lo-ball. Even in this economy, 2 years/10M is a joke for one of the top 2B's in the league, particularly one poised to reach an $8M vesting option. There were suggestions that these talks were just a PR move, but that offer is farcical. Being a Pirates fan must be worse than being a Warriors fan.

"Bochy reiterated what he said in spring training: "We are not in a platoon there." Travis Ishikawa, who hit a three-run triple yesterday, will start against some left-handers, but depending on the kind of lefty, Aurilia will get some starts, too."

I'll post this here, since few people scroll down and there's a not insignificant chance that I've missed something important that will make me look like an idiot for posting this. In short, the qouta for Type A/B free agent signings this team was 4, and Johnson is the Giants' fourth type A/B signee. In other words, discussion of Manny, Dunn, Burrell, etc. aren't just repetitive and tiresome, but moot. The link is to a BBTF thread where the discussion came up, scroll to the bottom to read the relevant portion of the CBA. I'm hoping that someone else has some insight as to whether or not this is correct.