WALL OF TEXT crits you for 24743987 (crushing).

You die.

Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.

 

All kidding aside, what I really wanted to ask is, what's the deal with this Judy Steffes? I keep seeing her name mentioned all over the site, but Google and the McFaq don't have anything about her. Whenever she's mentioned people start writing in all caps, and I think Xanthan is supposed to be in love with her or something.

I feel like Kyle Broflovski in this episode. So please, gang, let me in to the secret and I might even let you hear the finished version of Total Eclipse of the Giants I recorded.

This story looks pretty bad for Mateo. Arrested for (allegedly) passing counterfeit banknotes. Victor Santos may be tied up in this too. I imagine this is the end of his career - he's been pitching pretty crappily in Fresno.

I particularly love the way Mateo gave the game away - when the police come up to him, before they've said anything about counterfeit notes, he says "I didn't pass the bad money." Of course it's not the only game he's given away lately; his ERA in Fresno is 5.69.

According to this post, McCovey Chronicles is worth $138,920 (I love the false precision) and is the 39th most valuable blog sports blog in existence! No doubt this is based on the millions of nipple-chafing T-shirts sold. I wonder if Grant has taken to swimming, Scrooge McDuck-like, in his money?

Some things to note:

1) No Dodger blogs in the top 100!

2) Baseball Prospectus will no doubt use this to start their own blog-ranking stat, BRA.
E.g. Grant's holiday posting was amazing, and he had a .390 BRA over the past few weeks.

3) I hate Deadspin.

(edit:  Two front-page promotions in one day! You grubby little proletariat types finally get your day in the sun.)

Over at the Pirates blog - here.

It's got to the semi-finals, where it's our very own Brian Sabean taking part. This is actually Sabean's first match - as the number one seed to be worst GM (!) he got a bye in the first round, then he went through the second round unopposed as his opponent Wayne Krivsky got fired. So far Sabes has had it easy.

But now Sabean is up against Bill Bavasi - who deserves a lot of respect in this tournament, as a very bad GM in his own right. This will be no pushover, but Sabean is a gamer, so I'm sure he'll grit, hustle and bunt his way to a win.

Lest we forget, the Giants aren't the only team around these parts with a clueless owner, incompetent front office, ridiculous contracts given to substandard players and generally speaking a tough road to hoe.

To prove I know nothing about the draft, I was really excited when the Giants picked Rashaun Woods. He's now bouncing around the CFL (Go Hamilton Tiger Cats!). So I will rely on others to tell me whether they made a huge blunder or only a medium-sized folly.

The Niners are picking 29th, so I just hold my breath.

Well, having checked thoroughly under the cushions and behind the sofa, none of us could find the swagger. And I've discovered why. The swagger wasn't lost, it was stolen - by Jimmy Rollings. In fact, Rollins has been swaggering so much lately that detectives believe alchohol may be involved.

Brian Sabean has already tried to get the swagger back. I uncovered this top-secret communique from Sabean to Rollins, pleading for the missing swagger:

Sadly, not only did Rollins not return our swagger, he proceeded to steal our verve and our backbone, and our supplies of chutzpah are running dangerously low. Now that Sabean has failed, it is up to us to bring this swagger-thief to heel and return our team to glory.

What say you, men?

That cheater Troy Glaus has been exposed as taking steroids. I cannot believe that a ballplayer would disgrace himself in this way, or that his fans could sink so low as to cheer for him. From now on the Angels supposed win in the 2002 World Series will forever be marked with an asterisk. The Giants will always be regarded as the true winners.

Oh, and Glaus should be retrospectively stripped of his World Series MVP, which then would naturally go to Barry Bonds.

Congratulations to Giants fans everywhere! We finally won it!

ESPN is doing some retarded thing where it decides who the "face" of each franchise is. Normally I wouldn't care, but then I noticed that our very own Grant gets to choose!

So naturally I suggest that we in the McCoven use all the threats/bribery/blackmail/etc in our power to get some comedy injected into the proceedings.

Let's face it, there can only be one face of the Giants franchise:

Fred Lewis just needs 22 more grand slame to pass the great Lou Gehrig and become the all time leader. I for one am on tenterhooks.

It was just a matter of time before he turned back into a pumpkin.

This guy looks great. I haven't been this excited about a draft pick since... Rashaun Woods.

Very interesting stuff here about everyone's favourite pitching prospect. But dude, it's the Enchanter, not T-Link.

It seems we won't be having Richie back in San Francisco after all. It seems that he'll be accepting arbitration. Wow. It seems there was a hidden caveat to the Aurilia signing!

Does this mean that we won't be signing Dave Roberts either?

Well, the voting is over, and congratulations to the winners of the First Annual William Lee McCovey Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - a.k.a. the McCoveys!!!

Most Amusing Poster: kenshin1
Most Informative Poster: Steve S
Best Image (Gameday Thread): Stuttering John Tamargo for Dancing Mando
Best Image (non-Gameday Thread): Natto for Jaunty Shelled Armando
Outstanding Newcomer: North Side Chicago Expatriate Giants Fan
Spirit Award: Goofus

Congratulations to all involved, and thanks to everyone who voted - almost 650 votes in all.

I'll admit the awards didn't work out quite as I'd planned. As I said before, I hoped people would post in the threads giving examples of the amusing stuff people had posted and why you should vote for them, and I was prepared to take that into account along with the vote totals. I hoped these awards would be less about the voting and more a celebration of the community here. Truthfully, it didn't work out that way.

But that shouldn't take away from the winners. Steve S, Stuttering John Tamargo, and Natto all won in richly deserved landslides, and NSCEGF was a very worthy "Rookie of the Year." I'm very pleased kenshin won his award because he's been around since the very first days of this blog and it's hard not to like him. And Goofus winning an award gives us all hope :)

At the risk of sounding sappy, I think this is a really good bunch of really good fans, and if we had the team we deserved it'd be Jason Schmidt mowing down the Tigers' anaemic bats right now. It's been fun running these awards. Probably won't do it again next year though!

(In a Professor Farnsworth voice): Good news, everybody!

New labor deal announced.

The announcement on compensation picks reads as follows:

"Type C Major League free agents will no longer carry draft pick compensation for the club that loses the player, beginning this year, while Type A and Type B free agents will continue to carry compensation. Next year the Type A and Type B pools shrink. Right now, Pool A is the top 30 percent at their position, but in succeeding with decrease to 20 percent. Pool B is the top 50 percent, but it will decrease from 21 percent to 40 percent."

Let the news go forth! Prepare the fatted calf! Festoon yourself with garlands! Remove the stone of shame! Put on the stone of triumph!

Voting now closed for Award #5.

The Spirit Award is for the poster who has been the friendliest and most welcoming, and who has done the most to encourage community spirit. Who are the people who make this site fun, not necessarily by insight or wit, but just by being good guys (or gals). Here are the nominees, along with a couple of reasons to vote for each:

Irwin has been fun all year long, and made his famous plea to the McCoven.

Mayor of 311 has been friendly, generous with tickets, and ran the excellent ASG competition.

tk made the Offday Truths thread, and hasn't once pissed me off, which is no mean feat.

Goofus got nominated, though the good Lord alone knows why :)

kenshin1 has been one of the most fun, consistent and friendly contributers to the site.

obsessedgiantscompulsive (aka martin) has been a ray of sunshine, always so positive, optimistic and friendly even as this jerry-rigged team crashed around our ears.

As I don't want to bias the poll, I won't reveal who I'm voting for. Oh, all right, it's Mayor of 311.

Poll

Who deserves the Spirit Award?

8%

tk

6 votes

28%

Goofus

20 votes

21%

kenshin1

15 votes

8%

Irwin

6 votes

14%

obsessedgiantscompulsive

10 votes

19%

Mayor of 311

14 votes

71 votes | Poll has closed

1. ZiPS aren't out yet for the Giants, but a friend of mine managed to get a preview for a couple of players. ZiPS is optimistic on Jonathan Sanchez; it predicts a weighted mean ERA of 4.32, with surprisingly small variance; upper 10% is mid 3s, lower 10% is low 5s. However, it predicts he will walk everyone. ZiPS hates Frandsen and Linden, however, respectively predicting OPS below .700 for both - although Linden's prediction had a higher variance. Disappointing.
2. I put together a little spreadsheet and crunched the numbers. If the Giants keep payroll constant, I reckon they have $47.5m to play with this offseason. Maybe a little more, but I want to be conservative in my estimates.
3. Apparently Hiroki Kuroda is a free agent and looking to come over to the States. He had a K:BB of 143:21 in 189 IPs this year. Numbers like that jump out at me. What do you guys think? I believe we have some NPB experts here...
4. I am steadily warming to the idea of trading for Jason LaRue. He has maintained his peripherals this year, and his only problem was with his BA (which improved late in the year). PrOPS says his low BA is just bad luck and I tend to agree (and he got fairly few ABs). Now he's stuck behind Ross, and has asked for a trade. With that contract, we wouldn't have to give up anything much as long as we paid a couple million of his salary. What do you guys think?

Give it up for the newbies! As Grant once wrote:

This site has grown from around a hundred regular readers to about two hundred regular readers. I have you to thank. The second hundred, I mean. The first hundred obviously didn't promote my site enough. The first hundred can sit in the corner, and think about what they've done.

So far be it from me to discriminate against newscum. Generally speaking I don't approve of new things - New Coke, New England, Isaac Newton - even the New Testament is filth in my eyes. Turn the other cheek? Pah, flimshaw! Give me some old-fashioned eye for an eye, you fool. Why do we need a New Testament if the Old one wasn't broken? And don't even get me started on New Mexico.

But, in the case of this website, I'm happy to make an exception. In fact, I've even given you your own award. First prize is a blanket covered in smallpox.

Poll

Who is the Outstanding Newcomer at McCovey Chronicles?

8%

Merkin

9 votes

23%

North Side Chicago Expatriate Giants Fan

26 votes

2%

wilriv21

3 votes

23%

BaronVonCurrentEvents

26 votes

30%

They are all unworthy of so prestigious an award

34 votes

1%

Snof

2 votes

10%

howtheyscored

12 votes

112 votes | Poll has closed

Voting is now closed for the Best Image In a Gameday Thread. Some confusion has arisen as to what falls in what category. The images in Award #3 were things that were inherently Gameday-ish; i.e. rally images, things that were posted whenever the bullpen came in, etc. These images CAN be used in a Gameday thread (anything can) but there's nothing to say they have to be. Anyway, here are the nominees:

Schadenfreude

by Groug

Armando on the Mound

by Natto

Hackenbrand

by Natto

Church Sign

by Grant

The Towering Inferno

by ThatDog

Poll

What is the best Image?

10%

The Towering Inferno

17 votes

14%

Schadenfreude

23 votes

53%

Armando on the Mound

88 votes

10%

Hackenbrand (my personal favorite)

18 votes

10%

Church Sign

18 votes

164 votes | Poll has closed

Here are the nominees for your viewing (dis)pleasure.

      Rally President Harding                              NieKrool Aid
         
               by xanthan                                          by Eliminate Me

    Dancing 'Mando                                              Rally Squid

by Stuttering John Tamargo                                 by Eliminate Me

              Mandos, the Hands of Fate

                          by WalrusMan

Poll

What is the best image in a Gameday Thread?

14%

Rally President Harding

19 votes

8%

NieKrool Aid

12 votes

52%

Dancing 'Mando

71 votes

5%

Rally Squid

8 votes

18%

Mandos, the Hands of Fate

25 votes

135 votes | Poll has closed

Vote early and vote often. As before, please give examples.

Note 1: Polling now closed on Award #1. Yeah, you can still vote, but I won't be paying attention.
Note 2: Nominations now officially closed. Owing to the greater interest in some categories than others, the awards will be slightly different to how originally planned.

Poll

Who is the Most Informative Poster at McCoveyChronicles?

17%

Martin (ObsessedGiantsCompulsive)

16 votes

3%

North Side Chicago Expatriate Giants Fan

3 votes

5%

Lefty Malo

5 votes

10%

E

10 votes

63%

Steve S

58 votes

92 votes | Poll has closed

Please vote for who you consider the most amusing poster this year. But, as we all know, democracy is an imperfect system. For one thing, people could log in with multiple usernames and rig the vote. I certainly intend to.

Besides which, I am no fan of democracy, which counts all opinions - no matter how absurd - as equal, as long as you're 21 and have a body temperature around 98 Fahrenheit. So, while the vote results will be taken into account, I will also take into account the reasons given in this thread. Give examples of how amusing someone has been. Show love.

Also, please note that we need more nominees in the "Spirit Award" and "Best Newcomer" Categories.

Poll

Who is the Most Amusing Poster at McCoveyChronicles?

8%

Pants Man

11 votes

23%

Goofus

32 votes

18%

E

25 votes

17%

Josh From Hollywood

24 votes

9%

Mayor of 311

13 votes

21%

Kenshin1

29 votes

134 votes | Poll has closed

Grant has often commented that this site would not be where it is without us, the loyal readers - in much the same way that a leper would not be where he is without thousands of parasitic bacteria*. And so I have decided that the time has come to give much-deserved kudos to those posters who have thrilled and delighted us all season long. The categories are posted in this thread; I'll post what I consider to be the obvious nominees - please post who you think should also be nominated (possibly with a word or two as to why). Then we'll vote later. (Note: Grant is not eligible for some awards otherwise he'd just win everything)

And so, without further ado, here are the categories for the William Lee McCovey Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - a.k.a. the McCoveys!!!

*his words, not mine.

No doubt many of you will have seen this piece about Linden. Very interesting stuff, and I particularly like Lefebvre's quote; "I think he's made great progress with his mechanics, but the game had to humble him a little bit first."

This brings me to the point of this diary; what do you see the Giants doing with Linden next season? Personally, I would be very reluctant to give him the starting job, but I'd see him as a backup at both left for Barry and at right for another veteran like Alou or Sheffield, which would ensure him good playing time. On the other hand, he's out of options, which reduced flexibility, and there's the possibility that some other team has their eyes on him. A trade, maybe?

Your thoughts, please.

Source.

FRESNO

CONNETICUT

SAN JOSE

AUGUSTA

Food for thought?

Kanye has been activated.

Will he get any ABs?

Incidentally, Irwin, we need to arrange our bet. I propose total VORP over the next three years to be the arbiter. How about the sponsorship of a bb-ref page as the stakes?

Following up on Grant's post about fielding;

As many of you know, STATS Inc tracks every hit ball in every game played, and allocates them into "zones" - i.e. areas of responsibility for each fielder. A player's zone of responsibility is where, across the league, balls are turned into outs at a rate of 50% or more. A more detailed explanation can be found here.

STATS then publish each player's Zone Rating, i.e. Total Outs Made/(Balls Hit Into Zone + Outs made on balls out of zone). You can look them up on ESPNs excellent stat pages - for instance Pedro Feliz has a ZR of .814 at third base this year. This is important because Zone Rating is thought to be the best freely available fielding metric.

But I'm sure you're asking - is .814 good or bad? What's the league average? More importantly, how does a .814 Zone Rating convert into runs saved compared to a league average fielder? Well, a guy called Chris Dial has done the work, and has just published rankings for the NL through August 27th.

The rankings are here.

So we can see that Feliz has so far saved 7 runs above average with his glove. Nice. If only ESPN had that on their player pages. Hey, maybe they will someday...

As we're all Giants fans here (hopefully!) I assume we're mostly interested in the Giants players. A quick rundown:

Catcher: Eliezer Alfonzo grades out at average. However, the average is pulled down by Barrett and Piazza, who are both diabolical. Alfonzo ranks 11th of 16 qualifiers. This backs up my subjective idea: Alfonzo is one of the weaker defensive catchers in the NL, but not so bad as to be disastrous.

First: No Giant qualifies.

Second: Ray Durham is three runs below average, and would be five runs below average over 150 games. He ranks 10th of 15 qualifiers. This is a pleasant surprise, I thought Durham would be worse than that.

Third: Pedro Feliz is 7 runs above average, and on course for 9 runs above over 150 games. He is an excellent candidate for the gold glove. This backs up my subjective ideas - that Pedro's a wizard in the field. Interestingly, per BPro's BRAA, Feliz has been 7 runs below average with the bat. So if we accept all this data, Feliz is precisely a league average third baseman. Food for thought, considering the mammoth thread about the third base situation.

Shortstop: Vizquel is +10, and on course for +13 over 150 games. He is officially dreamy. Only Adam Everett, the poster child of advanced fielding metrics, ranks ahead of him. This very much ties in with my subjective ideas.

Left field: Bonds is +3, on track for +6 over 150 games, and ranks 6th of 15 qualifiers. I thought Bonds would be right around average, so this is a pleasant surprise. It shows that his savvy and glove counts for more than his lack of acceleration. It should also be a swift rebuff to those who think he can't handle left field.

Center field: Steve Finley is +4, on track for +7 over 150, but he ranks just 8th of 14 qualifiers. This backs up my subjective rankings; he's a decent CF, but there are plenty of better ones.

Right field: Data incomplete. Fiddlesticks.

Thoughts? Comments? Observations?

Link here - note, the story is in Spanish. Here's a rough translation (my Spanish is rusty).

Next Jewel of San Francisco?

The Giants gave a US $2.1m bonus to the young Dominican prospect Angel Villalona, just 16 years old.

Santo Domingo (AP) - Will Angel Villalona be the next Dominican jewel in the Major Leagues?

The San Francisco Giants are betting yes after spending 2.1 million dollars on the prospect, barely 16 years old.

The third baseman received the second highest bonus in the history of the Dominican Republic, surpassed only by the $2.3m that the New York Yankees paid Wily Mo Pena in 1999.

"This means so much to me. It is a dream come true," said Villalona in a telephone interview with the AP.

Villalona measures six feet and three inches tall (1.92 meters) and weighs 200 pounds (90 kilos).

According to the scouts responsible for his signature, his potential is enormous.

"This boy has tremendous abilities, enormous power, good hands and an above average arm," said Pablo Peguero, head of Giants' scouting in Latin America.

In fact, Peguero went as far as to compare the prospect with the big stars playing in the Major Leagues today.

"I signed [Adrian] Beltre at 16 years old; Raul Mondesi­ at the same age and I watched Vladimir Guerrero and Alfonso Soriano and none of them had Villalona's abilities at his age," said the veteran scout.

Villalona stated that the Giants were not the team that offered the most money, but he was convinced by the way they treated him.

One from four brothers of divorced parents, Villalona is one of the "Romana" (?), from the east of the country.

He will travel to the United States in September, and the Giants already have a date in mind for his Major League debut.

"This boy is going to be like Beltre, and in three years I believe that he is going to be in the bigs", Peguero claimed.

Shortly after the draft, we were all asked if there was a mid-round pick that caught the eye. Now, obviously, it's far too soon to judge anything and yada yada yada. But it's never to soon to crow. Or, perhaps, eat crow. So who did you pick, and how are they doing? All my picks play for the Volcanoes.

I picked two pitchers:
                     W   L  SV  ERA    IP    H    R   ER  HR  BB   K
Ryan Paul        1   1   1   7.45  9.2   12   8    8    2     5   13
Paul Oseguera  0   1   1   7.04  15.1 22  13  12   0     7   23

Ugly, ugly ERAs, but outstanding K/9s. Basically, these guys are both very wild. That's OK, this is rookie ball. So far, reasonably good, but obviously a million miles away from being worth anything.

I also picked a hitter:

              AB   H   2B  3B HR  BB  K   SB  CS   AVG   OBP   SLG
Bret Pill  130  32  11   0   3    11  21   2    1    .246   .308   .400

This is not a good start at all. He needs to improve, dramatically, in just about every area.

It seems Randy isn't the only one having trouble stealing. I tell you, it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of orcs.

I guess we now know the answer to Grant's question (scroll down, look for Floyd Thursby). It's a bit of both.