SB Nation User Blog: Grant

Holiday Nuthin' Thread

Grant — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:24:39 -0000

Nuthin'.

Favorite albums of the year thread. Pick your favorite that was released in '09, and your favorite that you didn't find out about until '09. Don't bother with this thread if you don't want to read a bunch of music nerd rambling.

Baroness - Blue Record

This album makes me feel like I've emerged from the womb of Gaia, covered in earthy placenta, arms aloft, raising a golden sword to the heavens, and just screaming in rage before charging down the barren landscape to smite my enemies.

Also, the songs are really good. Totally good and everything. Some people complain that it isn't metal, which would probably mean I don't like metal. Whatever. I was listening to Wrathchild America when you were still sneaking into your big sister's room to listen to her Cure records. Don't challenge my metalness, hipster scum.

But, yeah. It's my favorite record in years. I wasn't a huge fan of their Red Album, so this one snuck up on me.

The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle

When I was really, really serious about my pop -- when I could bore a first date with Elephant 6 factoids like few other nerds could -- this album was an import-only dealie, which usually ran around $30. Since I was a broke college student before the days of Napster, I could never pull the trigger on this CD. It was supposed to be the bestest pop album ever, but it was the same price as three used CDs.

I forgot about it until this year, for some reason. Downloaded it from eMusic, and my mind has been blown ever since. It's just as complete and well-crafted as Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's.

Now you.

Source:Jason Bay is not unlinked to rumors about the Giants. Maybe.

Grant — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:52:30 -0000

Logic is good. Logic is what keeps you from hitting on the gal with the adam’s apple in the smokey dive bar.

Raw emotion can be good, but it’s also what will tell you to take a chance "because that might not be an adam’s apple at all -- it might just be the beginnings of a goiter -- so how do you know until you investigate after eight more drinks?" Fear that raw, base emotion.

Logic says Jason Bay, fine hitter that he is, is going to be overpaid. A lot of his value is given right back on defense, he’s over 30, and he isn’t likely to age gracefully. Maybe he’ll ease into his mid- and late-30s like a healthy Moises Alou. Logic says that it would be silly to pay close to $100M to find out.

Then the raw emotion takes over. Bay’s asking price is now floating around 4/$70M, which is almost the kind of contract a team can work around. He’d replace Eugenio Velez, so it’s an addition by subtraction even before it’s an addition by addition. Bay is a real hitter – he gets "on base" and hits balls for "extra bases" if you believe the myths – and he’d sure be a fine addition to the lineup. And, heck, the Giants have a strikeout staff, so do they really need a great left fielder?

Fight those feelings. The logic is sound. Even if you’re a UZR skeptic , Bay’s defensive reputation doesn’t improve when you disregard the statistics in favor of fan-based scouting reports. By all accounts, Bay is a lousy fielder. How lousy? Lousy enough to hurt his overall value in a big way, and he isn’t getting younger and more agile.

But Bay! In the middle of the lineup! And then you do one of those CHECK OUT MY LINEUP things after you furiously rosterbate:

C – Posey
3B – Sanchez
LF – Bay
1B – Sandoval
2B – Uggla (Doug Clark and Jake Esteves to the Marlins)
RF – Bowker
CF – Rowand
SS – Renteria

By gum, that looks like a real lineup. I’m in!

Wait, would this mean that the Giants would really have to count on Bay performing at a decent level until 2013? Uh, I’m out.

On-base percentage! Walks! I’m in! Nuts to the future; it’d be nice to win next year, and, hey, even with the bad defense, FanGraphs has him as a three-win, $14M-worthy player.

Gee, it’s so strange to be so conflicted about a player, knowing that there’s no way he’ll be a good investment, but still kind of curious to see him play for the Giants. I wonder if this has ever happened before?

Uh, yeah.

No Bay. Please, no. That’d be a combined $410M spent on Zito, Rowand, and Bay every year, none of whom will be good in two years. That’s just a guess, and your mileage may vary. But no Bay.

If the Giants do sign him, it'll be pretty cool to watch a team with real hitters next year, though.

The Giants lost Nick Johnson to the Yankees. They could lose Mark DeRosa to the Yankees, Braves or...

Grant — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:03:23 -0000

The Giants lost Nick Johnson to the Yankees. They could lose Mark DeRosa to the Yankees, Braves or Cardinals. But they remain confident that they will free-agent hitters.

Matt Holliday or Jason Bay?

"I wouldn’t say it’s impossible," said one source with knowledge of the team’s thinking, "but let’s see how everything unfolds."

...sez Rosenthal. Say it loud, and say it proud! We will free-agent hitters! We will free-agent hitters!

Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | SD@SF: Sanchez hurls the first no-hitter of 2009 - Video | SFGiants.com: Multimedia

Grant — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:06:50 -0000

Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | SD@SF: Sanchez hurls the first no-hitter of 2009 - Video | SFGiants.com: Multimedia

Take a few minutes and watch this again. I like baseball.

Rick Ankiel: Cheap power for a weird organization?

Grant — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:12:55 -0000

I swore I wasn't going to do another "What about this free agent?" post, but they're like crack. I'll get this over with, n00b-FanPost-style:

What about Rick Ankiel? He's a low-OBP, low-BA hacker with serious power who was busted for HGH, but didn't fall off a cliff until the season after, so maybe the decline is unrelated, but he'd be cheap on a one-year deal, and his wOBA was just above .360 the previous two years, yet his defense isn't great shakes, though his arm is tops, and left-handed hitters usually don't hit for power in San Francisco, but maybe Ankiel is an exception. Thoughts????

Ugh. I hate the offseason. What's even worse is that when rosterbating, you have to look at things from the Giants' warped perspective. "So, assuming that Eugenio Velez is a leadoff hitter and corner outfielder worth starting, and assuming that John Bowker is not a good soldier who can help a baseball team by soldiering, what free agents should we look at?"

Rick Ankiel doesn't make sense on a team that should give Bowker a chance to be a cheap, OBP-friendly Ankiel. But you know what they say about hitters who don't like Venezuela: they will consume your team from the inside out like little nanobots shaped like piranha-dogs. I think Earl Weaver used to say that. Makes sense. Why judge a player on a full AAA season when you can judge the player on their willingness to spend their winter in a country with one of the worst murder rates in the world? Man up, and don't get murdered, Nancy.

But if the Giants are going to ignore the existence of Fred Lewis, if Bowker doesn't have a chance to get 400 at-bats with the Giants, and if Nate Schierholtz just swung at a slider that hit his back leg, the Giants will need an outfielder or two. Eugenio Velez is currently penciled in as a starter, despite not having a baseball-related skill (other than raw speed) that's even average.

Eugenio Velez is currently penciled in as a starter, despite not having a baseball-related skill (other than raw speed) that's even average.

When you put it that way, sure, you'll start thinking about players like Ankiel, Xavier Nady, and Ryan Church. What's even more frightening is that Eugenio Velez is currently penciled in as a starter, despite not having a baseball-related skill (other than raw speed) that's even average. So I wouldn't be devastated by a one-year, show-me deal to a guy like Ankiel, who's one of the few players on the market capable of hitting 30 homers for less than $5M. It doesn't make sense until you fall down the rabbit hole in front of the Giants' executive offices, but once you're down, you start hoping for things like this.

What would make the decision easier, though, is if I knew what Ankiel would hit over a stretch of random at-bats in July. And would Ankiel happily go to Venezuela? I have no idea. This player evaluation stuff is hard!

Lindsay Lohan herself was seen spending her time together with Leonardo DiCaprio on Thursday,...

Grant — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:37:51 -0000

Lindsay Lohan herself was seen spending her time together with Leonardo DiCaprio on Thursday, December 17, Radar Online reported. They were spotted clubbing at Voyeur nightclub in West Hollywood before heading to San Francisco Giants baseball player Brian Wilson's Christmas party to join other friends including Ryan Phillippe, Kevin Connolly and Jayde Nicole. The pair left Brian's residence separately the next morning.

Link. No editorial, as I usually don't like to post anything about off-field stuff, but it amuses me to see all of those names together. What in the world do Leonardo DiCaprio and Brian Wilson talk about?

Now that Nick Johnson's off the market...

Grant — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:48:43 -0000

The slow progression of offseason hope-munching continues. The Giants lost out on Nick Johnson because they weren't willing to offer a second year. Remind yourself of this in May, when Johnson is on the DL for psoriasis or something. Or remind yourself in October, when he takes a bases-loaded walk to win a World Series game. I would have given a second year, but I understand why there wasn't a team willing to do so. I'm not going to blame the Giants for not going all in.

Chone Figgins was too expensive, and if he doesn't put up a couple more seasons like his last, he isn't going to be worth it. Matt Holliday is going to get $100M, and Jason Bay is going to get $90M to go with his sketchy defense. I can't complain about a team not wanting to commit to those sorts of luxuries. Those aren't the once-in-a-decade offensive forces the Giants are looking for, but they'll be paid like the are.

I'm not going to blame the Giants for not trading Madison Bumgarner for a pre-arbitration cleanup hitter who doesn't exist. I'm not going to blame them for not wanting to part with Thomas Neal or Jonathan Sanchez for Dan Uggla.

So I'll spend the rest of the offseason gritting my teeth about the Aaron Rowand and Barry Zito contracts, and just hoping that some how, some way, the Giants fall into an average offense next year. If they sign Mark DeRosa for three years, I'll weep a little bit, but then I'll hope he improves the team for next year, and next year only. If they sign Adam LaRoche for a huge contract, even though he's a marginal improvement over Ryan Garko, I'll grumble and spit, and then I'll hope LaRoche makes the Giants a better team in 2010.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm giving up any hope for a good offseason. There isn't a permutation of players that will result in sound short- and long-term planning. There isn't a magical wizard who is going to come down from the sky and bless the Giants with prudent-yet-aggressive decision making. This isn't Seattle. I'm expecting a disaster of a contract -- something that will end as messily as Randy Winn's deal. So now that I've resigned myself to that mess, I'm focused on hoping that there's at least one good season that the team can wring out of the player(s) in question.

I'm hoping for an average offense built on the backs of players likely to decline. Is that too much to ask? The "players likely to decline" part is a given, so I'm trying to find a way to still be slightly optimistic. Heck, it worked for me when I was trying to justify the Rowand deal!

Aaron Rowand is the parsley garnish for a franchise preparing to serve a gourmet meal. The Giants had a paper plate with a shapeless pile of room-temperature raccoon slurry. Now they have a piece of parsley for it. The Giants had just a fantastic offseason.

Giants agreed to terms w/Dominican 3B Duanel Jones. Number not completely confirmed but multiple...

Grant — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:10:49 -0000

Giants agreed to terms w/Dominican 3B Duanel Jones. Number not completely confirmed but multiple sources have indicated its $1.3 million.

From Baseball Prospectus's Kiley McDaniel. Who is Duanel Jones? Seriously, you don't know? Wow. You've been living under a rock. Here's the Google search for Duanel Jones so you can catch up to the rest of us in the know.

Wait, all of the results link back to McDaniel's tweet. I'm not sure if I should be excited, but I'll assume that the $1.3M means it's like picking up a late first-round draft pick. Is it possible that the Giants decided not to offer Bengie Molina arbitration with one eye on trying to replace the phantom pick through international signing efforts?

Maybe, but that sort of pragmatism isn't something I'm used to, so I'll assume that Jones is 25 and he just swung at a slider in the dirt. That fits my preconceptions, and I didn't have enough coffee this morning to challenge any long-held beliefs

About those Adrian Beltre rumors....

Grant — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:41:58 -0000

More photos » by Kevin P. Casey - AP

You can run, but your Dodger past will catch up with you. I'd like to think that being consumed by your Dodger past looks similar to when the bad guys died in Ghost.

Browse more photos »

Sometimes a meme comes around that I just don’t get. I was all in on those LOLCats – heck, I’m pretty sure I started them – but I can’t get into the Talk Like a Pirate Day, for one. It’s a joke that I don’t get, and I’m pretty sure I don’t care to.

The Giants-related meme I don’t get is that Adrian Beltre would be a good idea. I know the science behind the idea; Beltre’s road splits away from Seattle are very impressive, and his defense is stellar. All things being equal, he’d be a nice player to take a chance on. But here’s what scares me…

Fair? Maybe not. But when I see a player have a down year right after he turns 30 – with a higher BABIP than normal, mind you – my instinct isn’t to take a gamble on that player, especially if it forces Pablo Sandoval to first, and costs about $40M or so, ~~and requires the Giants to cough up their first-round pick.~~ (My bad. I thought he was a Type-A free agent.)

If Beltre were guaranteed to repeat his 2008, I’d be in favor of a deal. But a large part of his value comes from his defense, which isn’t always a good bet to be consistent:

If Beltre moves from "otherworldly" to "damn fine" with the glove, and his bat doesn’t rebound back to the 25+ homer guy who was consistently hurt by Safeco, he wouldn’t be worth $8M to $10M a year. No, no. In fact, as long as I’m playing the picture is worth a 1,000 words game, here’s what that description would remind me of:

Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in. Maybe I’m just scarred by the recent history of the position.

I know Beltre was hurt last year with some sort of awful testicle laceration or something, so maybe I’m being too hard on his performance last season. He’s been a good player. It’s just that I’d be nervous enough about him in 2010, much less 2012, to make a large financial commitment.

Pass.

Revisiting the Dan Uggla Idea

Grant — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:20:23 -0000

From the Miami Herald:

During the Marlins’ Dan Uggla trade talks with San Francisco, Giants players who were discussed include right-hander Jonathan Sanchez (8-12, 4.24 ERA; no-hitter last season); lefty Clayton Tanner (a top minor-league pitcher) and a midlevel pitching prospect.

I'm sure the weather was discussed too. Uggla for midwestern cold front! Which is to say, the Giants aren't giving up Sanchez, and the Marlins don't want an arbitration case in return for a player they're trading because he makes too much in arbitration.

When I cringed at the inclusion of Tanner -- a C+ prospect, at best -- it made me ask myself what I would be willing to include for two years of a fairly pricey Dan Uggla. If we go by the newest update of the Community Prospect List, here would be my response if a specific prospect were traded:

Buster Posey - stab an orphan
Madison Bumgarner - stab an orphan
Thomas Neal - stab an orphan
Zack Wheeler - n/a (not eligible to trade for a few months)
Roger Kieschnick - give an orphan a terribly violent wedgie
Tommy Joseph - n/a (not eligible to trade for a few months)
Brandon Crawford - give an orphan a terribly violent wedgie
Rafael Rodriguez - stab an orphan
Dan Runzler - grit my teeth and curse under my breath until the Stockholm Syndrome kicks in, and I come around on the trade
Nick Noonan - give an orphan a terribly violent wedgie
Conor Gillaspie - smile and wait for them sweet, sweet Uggla dingerz
Ehire Adrianza - give an orphan a terribly violent wedgie
Francisco Peguero - shrug my shoulders and hope he doesn't make the Giants look stupid

So if I'm loathe to trade hardly any of my top dozen prospects, do I really want Uggla? I thought I did. And while I'm sure that Uggla will cost the Marlins 25% of their expected payroll, they also know they have a better-than-average shot at being a contender. I don't think they'll just dump Uggla just to dump him. They're not going to take Merkin Valdez and a bunch of bills with Jefferson Davis on them.

I guess I don't want Uggla after all. At least, I don't want him unless the cost to get him is much lower than I'm expecting.

Open What Would You Give For Uggla/Let's Have a New Thread to Talk About Some Inane Off-Topic Topic Thread.