
can of corn
Apr 30, 2008 Jun 01, 2012 42 25221
website: Quick Pitch - my baseball blarg
a fan of
San Francisco Giants
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ICYMI - Inside the Clubhouse with Buster and Freddy, along with Oropesa and Susac. I know folks were looking for this after it aired on CSNBA earlier this week, so here it is for your streaming pleasure.
4 months ago
can of corn
4 comments
1 recs
Baseball Pokemonz
With Spring Training just around the corner, a girl's thoughts turn naturally to fantasy baseball.
Have folks started giving consideration to starting up some leagues again this year? I know last year jcb9 raged his way into the commissionership of a league I was fortunate enough to not finish last in, and there were some other leagues formed in basements across the McCoven.
Who's in this year?
And also, I need 6 more words. Done.
Bengie and his blog
So Molina made a new blog entry. The snark in me is glad to see that he's taking credit for Vlad's two run double.
And what's this about champagne and beer being sprayed? I thought it was ginger ale?
At any rate, welcome back to SF, Bengie. Hope to send you back home to Texas down 2-0.
Seems that owlcroft caught the eye of JoePo (HRs - juiced balls or juiced players?)
When I was reading the Joe Posnanski's article, the link he provided sounded familiar. And sure enough, in the past, owlcroft has used his site for reference here (notably in this thread).
At any rate, I thought it intriguing that it caught Posnanski's interest, and his blog on it was an interesting read.
Posey in Fresno b/c pitchers wanted him there?
This made me want to kick a puppy:
"[Posey]’s in Fresno because the Giants starters preferred to pitch to Bengie Molina this year."
THAT'S why Posey started in Fresno? Because the starters wanted to pitch to Molina for THIS YEAR? Where in the hell is this guy getting his information?
Hack.
(Unless, of course, this has any kernel of truth to it. Then I'm extraordinarily sad.)
DeRosa to hit DL, have wrist surgery
Well, there's that, I guess.
On one hand, I'm glad he's getting the problem fixed instead of sucking his way through it.
On the other hand, it would have been nice not to spend $12 million on a broken dude, and instead signed someone who could play a little. But what do I know?
Lighting Farts Backfires on Cubs Players
Men are weird sometimes.
And also, LOL @ singed butt hair.
/I R 5
Teenage Girl Outpitches Dany Heatley
How'd I miss this (or maybe it was discussed already and I missed THAT). Anyhoo - a 17 year old girl threw a better first pitch than Heatley. Like waaaay better. You go girl!
AJ Back on the Trade Block
Quick, Sabes - go kick some tires!
(And also - lulz that interest in AJ is not good.)
Edinson Volquez is the juicer
Well, there's that.
Too bad it wasn't somebody I'd like to see off the Giants' roster, like, say...... EUGENIO VELEZ.
Anyhoo - if anybody thinks that guys aren't still doing stuff, they're wrong.
Molina still feeling underappreciated
Okay, I get that the feeling he expressed are natural. Who can blame him for feeling unappreciated, even if it wasn't entirely reasonable for him to expect a team to make a 3 year offer to a fat 35-year-old catcher?
I just can't stand that he continues to whine about it to the press.
Thanks for the great performance over the last couple games, Bengie. But please put on your big boy pants and just play.
Uh-oh - The Giants pull a "Natinals"
Not like I really want Velez in a San Francisco jersey, but if he's gonna be, it should at least be spelled right.
Schulman is NOT one of Lewis' relatives
At the risk of continuing the heated Fred discussion. . .
Jenkins wants to strip Meulens of his Bam-Bam
Oh, please. Now he's an arbiter of nicknames? Lifelong nicknames? What a ridiculous waste of bytes.
Urban wants to hug you all
And also, he reads the site all the time. Hi Mychael!
Jenkin's article illustrates how Ginats Brassz failed in its off-season activity
So, in reading this article, the only thing I could think of was how it was a perfect example of the front office's failure this off-season. Instead of assembling a coherent line-up, Sabean just grabbed a potpourri of players, leaving it to Bochy to figure out how to play them (with few of them actually able to play in their "natural" position).
Aside from the obvious LOL OLD! factor, it seems that there wasn't a real good plan with respect to what positions the team was looking to fill. And it shows.
Of course, I'm just a "fan", so I could be completely wrong.
SABR offering free download of The Emerald Guide 2010
To the Stat Cave, nerds!
(I've asked for my copy. Me = nerd.)
Fantasy League, or Baseball Pokemon
So, uh, I've never played fantasy baseball before. But I thought I might like to try this year. Anybody here planning on starting a league with room for a beginner that y'all can easily beat?
And to complete the 75 word minimum, I'd like to offer this:
If I were playing third base and my mother were rounding third with the run that was going to beat us, I'd trip her. Oh, I'd pick her up and brush her off and say, "Sorry, Mom," but nobody beats me. -Leo Durocher
Velez in RF?
From Baggs:
–Bochy said "absolutely no question" that right field would be the biggest battle of the spring. John Bowker, Nate Schierholtz and Eugenio Velez are the leading candidates. Bochy confirmed he’s still thinking that Aaron Rowand will lead off and Madison Bumgarner will be the fifth starter.
My thoughts on Velez in RF: ROFLMAO. Imagine those RF routes, only to be followed by a dive and a clank.
Byung-Hyun Kim? Really?
Bargain bin pick-up or useless roster occupier? You be the decider.
Venezuelan League Championship streaming on-line NOW
With the Panda!
Joe Posnanski : Royals :: Can of Corn : Giants
It's no secret that Joe Posnanski is one of my favorite baseball writers. Aside from his endearing man-crush on our own Kuiper, he's just very good at what he does.
This morning I was reading his blog post about a "sixth stage" of grief with respect to his team, the Kansas City Royals, and realized that his feelings about the Royals' GM and his construction of the team's roster easily mirror my own about the Giants. He describes the stages of Royals grief. Here are my stages of Giants grief.
There's the Anger. That's how I feel about the Molina signing. Not because Molina is necessarily worse than any other player available (although I'm not sold on his contributions to the team), but because I can't believe that his attitude will change this year, and because it shows how the front office just so easily reverts to the same rut it was in before, while touting it as a good move.
Bargaining. Like JoePo, some of us have hoped that certain signings from this off-season and last would somehow revert to form. Not going to happen, I'm sure, but a part of me does hope that it's possible. Will F Sanchez recover from his various surgeries, and somehow recapture his batting stroke from 2 years ago? Will Huff provide some fo the offense he exhibited a couple seasons back? With Renteria's off-season surgery return him to form? Doubtful, but wouldn't it be nice?
Depression. That's brought on by the ages of our starting lineup (Panda excepted). Gah.
Acceptance. Okay, I'll admit I'm not all the way there, yet. But what can you do - the roster is what it is (wait - did I just reach acceptance?).
Now here's where JoePo sees into my soul and expresses what I feel. He comes up with a "sixth stage" of grief - Bafflement. This probably describes more precisely my reaction to Sabean's moves this off-season. Read what Posnanski says about the surplus of mediocre, aging outfielders on the Royals. Sound familiar? Now pay close attention to the discussion of Bill James' analysis of how aging affects players' abilities, and his conclusion of how the Royals' FO ignores this kind of thing based on the signings of older players: "I suspect they're not investing enough study time in the aging process." Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so.
Other quotes that capture my feelings about the Giants:
But what makes the whole thing so baffling is that I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to accomplish
In this one, sub "Giants" for "Royals", and this describes our team pretty well, too:
. . . they are going around the league and signing 30-somethings that nobody else wants. It is troubling that the Royals apparently plan in 2010 is to make fans hope that a bunch of older players will recapture their past glory — or at least their past moderate success.
And finally, this seems eerily familiar as well:
It is troubling that Dayton Moore’s entirely sensible plan for success — find young players, develop them, bring them to the big leagues — seems to be spinning in the mud. If you are going to be that kind of organization, you actually have to BE that kind of organization. I don’t know if Jason Kendall, Scott Podsednik, Jose Guillen, Rick Ankiel, Yuniesky Betancourt, Kyle Farnsworth, Juan Cruz and so on are are blocking any promising younger players from the big leagues.
But I guess that’s the point: If they ARE blocking younger talents, then the Royals are doing a lousy job of developing players.
And if they ARE NOT blocking younger talents, then the Royals are doing a lousy job of developing players.
In short, I think that maybe the alleged negativity on this site may have more to do with this "sixth stage" of grief of Bafflement, more than anything else. We love our team; we've been lapping up promises of going younger and looking for success, only to see a bunch of old guys. And we're not seeing our supposed prospects being cleared for a role with the team. We're not overwhelmingly negative. Maybe we're just baffled.
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McGwire used 'roids? No Way!
Well, duh. While I appreciate his (much belated) honesty, it still sounds like he's not quite taking full responsibility when he says "Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era." Like somehow he just HAD to take them.
Whatever.
For the record: I really don't care that guys took 'em. Everybody was dirty then. But don't pick out only certain individuals to vilify.
Boof DFA'd!
Quick, Grant - call up Ginats Brazss and make it happen!
Status of all 2010 Free Agents
Didn't see this posted anywhere - but this may come in handy over the next week. LOL at Boras clients in bold.
Sabean looking at "second tier" FAs
Well, there goes next season. If anybody thought we'd get a different Sabean after the contract extension, they were wrong.
Sigh.
Michael Goldsmith, ALS Advocate, dies at 58
This might not be of interest to everyone, but this man was one of my best and most favorite professors, and he used his last years to raise awareness for ALS, enlisting the help of MLB this past season - Game 5 of the World Series was dedicated in part to him.
You'll be missed, Professor Goldsmith.
"Giants name Hensley Meulens as their new hitting coach today. Meulens spent last season as the triple-A hitting coach for Fresno Grizzlies."
Is this a good thing?
Ostler's Thoughts on Next Season
Maybe it's my continued self-denial that we're still looking at Sabean and Bochy in charge of this team for a couple years, but for some reason I enjoyed this article.
In particular:
Firing Carney Lansford last week was a great move. With this team and its guiding offensive philosophy, there is no point in having a hitting coach. All a hitting coach can do is clutter up the hitters' minds with unnecessary thoughts, like, well, thoughts.
Lansford should have been fired two years ago when it became clear he was going to be a big buttinsky.
The fellow who collected all those free-swinging, non-thinking hitters in one clubhouse, and the fellow who gave those free-swingers license to swing freely - both those fellows were given two-year contract extensions.
Pablo team lead in BB still fewer than the lowliest Dodger
This was a bit depressing. Who knew it would be Pablo with the most walks. And although it's not unexpected that most other players would have more, it's sad that every single regular player on the Dodgers have more BBs than our lead walking guy.
And I'm just going to ignore the bit comparing the Rockies' and Giants' records since the sweep. It makes me cry.
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