Baggs' post game wrap was basically a post road trip wrap, where Sabean took stock and laid blame.  And his vet love oozes all over the page and then he names the primary culprits for the struggling Giants offense: the young players, all crudely lumped into a single mass of fail:

"It's not the at-bats vs. what they look like, and that teams have been successful getting him out," Sabean said of Frandsen, who hit .128 in 39 at-bats. "And we've seen the same thing from (Travis) Ishikawa and (Fred) Lewis and Schierholtz and (John) Bowker, who hasn't been nearly as comfortable as we thought he'd be. None of that has helped the situation."

Bowkermania never flowed through my veins, but his struggles are still a surprise.  Yet it's a pretty small sample and is he really the problem?  Are the young guys at fault?

The team batting average for the road trip was .218.  How bad did the kids do?  Ishikawa is my guy, so I'll pick him from the bunch to defend.  He entered the road trip with a .269 average, and left the road trip with a .269 average (OBP and SLG did go down over the road trip, and AVG is a pretty hollow stat, but I have it available for me from the article).  Similarly, Schierholtz maintained .295 average and hovered around OBP/SLG of 325/425 over the road trip.  Not great numbers for either of them, but NOT THE PROBLEM (if the problem is a .218 AVG).

Of the vets, Winn stayed consitently classy but punchless (.711 OPS) and Fred Lewis should demand a trade to Colorado after his little revival there.

Who does Sabes want back?  Rowand went 1 for 17 (Must of the suck coming before the bruise).  Renteria just managed to maintain an AVG above 250, OBP above 300 and OPS over 620, flirting with lower numbers throughout the road trip.  Molina ... well he still is making tons of outs.

Bowker, Downsie, Molina and Uribe can take a big part of the blame in my book for the dismal offense this road trip.  Too many outs.  Who do you blame (aside from that stupid purple dino or the other teams' talent)?  Who is the whipping boy now?  Who is the object of your scorn? Look back on the road trip and fill in the blank "Ah, sh**, ____ is up again. Guess I'll hit the can and grab a beer/nachos/soda/pop."  Who is your blank?  Who do you dump?

Way back in December of 2008, I put up this fanpost so that we, the McCoven, could express our individual views of the top 10 Giants Prospects in comparison with the our McCovey Chronicles Community Pospect List.  As the Community Prospect List winds down it seems like a good time to revisit the idea.

Before the top-10 lists that were posted showed the main points of disagreement were minor order squibbles between the top-4 guys and then the 4-8 guys and then deciding who made the cut for the top ten.  Pucetas or Barnes? Kieschnick or Ishikawa?  I think this time we will see some new trends develop. (that is if anyone participates....)  Do relievers belong in a the top 20?  How do you seperate out the group of starters that began the season in San Jose?  Age and Level? Potential versus Proximity? I think we'll see some patterns emerge that resulted from voting system where under 25% of the vote could win the spot.  And of course, with more spots available than when we posted top-10s, we should see more widely varied results. 

And, maybe you've changed your mind since voting in the polls.  Have the discussions here swayed you?  Perdomo who? What's a Jesus "Raptor" Guzman?  Did John Sickels sway you with his top 20?

So post your list of top prospects and go as high as you would like.  Maybe explain  your ranking decisions, or maybe let us guess at your ranking criteria and philosophy.  This is also the time for those 15 people that have been voting for McBryde for 20 rounds to put him where he BELONGS!  A chance for EME to be ranked either 10th or off the list entirely.  What sort of idiot would rank Snyder 19 spots below Pucetas!!!!1!  Remember voting for that one guy in poll after poll until the rest of us finally got there?  Well now put him in your list where you want and move on. Simple.

Let it all out.  Be an individual! Respect to the group, but let's see what YOU think.

At this point I think it might be cool to see how people's individual top tens are reflected in the community top ten. I was going to post this in a comment in the #11 poll, but didn't want to steal the thunder of the Pucetas-bashing, Ishikawa-pumping comments there.

Here's the Community Top Ten:

1. SP Madison Bumgarner
2. "C" Buster Posey
3. SP Tim Alderson
4. 1B Angel Villalona
5. 2B Nick Noonan
6. 3B Conor Gillaspie
7. SP Henry Sosa
8. OF Rafael Rodriguez
9. OF Roger Kieschnick
10. SP Kevin Pucetas

How does your list differ from that?  I'll post mine in a comment. 

We also might compare our top ten list this year with top ten from last year.  Find your top ten from last year and compare it with yours from this year.  Some of us attempted to predict BAs top ten in this thread.  By the way BA's top ten was:

1. Angel Villalona
2. Tim Alderson
3. Madison Bumgarner
4. Nate Schierhotz
5. Henry Sosa
6. Nick Noonan
7. Eugenio Velez
8. Wendell Fairley
9. John Bowker
10. Emmanuel Burriss

So the Giants send Roberts to the DL and call up... Clay Timpner.  Not nasty Nate? Warum?

Since, I just looked at the stats on baseballreference.com here some are:

Timpner career minors: .283/328/379/707.  Turns 25 in May, bats/throws left.
After 60 Games in Fresno in 06, in 07 he pulled a: .301/363/395/758.
After some good steals/cs numbers in SJ, its been pretty dismal in AAA.

Schierholtz career minors: .306/352/505/857. 24 since February.  Bats left, Throws right.
First year in Fresno (2007): 333/365/560/925.

So Nate is off to a slow start I guess.  And Clay can play CF. So can Davis.  So can a healed Winn. Oh and that bruised ribs guy.  And wasn't Velez getting CF time last year.  I'm pretty sure Aurilia can play a good CF.  Is this just SF using its 40 man roster to reward a AAA that got skipped over in all the Lewis/Davis madness last year?  His turn for a cup of coffee?  Another display of the Giant's organizations depth of mediocrity in the OF?  Hey lookie other teams, you can have a Taschner-model loogie and a [insert name here] AAAA OF for your  AA blocked 3rd base prospect.

and if they're hurt, why not DL the lot of the old OF (Roberts AND Winn (ankles right?) AND Aaron "Chest-Pains" Rowand).  Lewis, Davis, Schierholtz, Backups Ort, and Velez.ner

Did anyone else get an advertisement posing as a men's magazine in the mail this past week? Somehow, I got an issue of Complex mailed to me.  Now I'm on some damn mailing list.  And I have an issue with it.  The magazine's spine's motto: BUY. COLLECT. OBSESS.

It says its a Marc Ecko Production.  Now the only way I can think of that I got onto a ME mailing list is the 756-HR Ball online poll.  But I don't remember, did you have to put in an address to vote?  Was I lax enough to put in my actual address?

I remember ME saying the poll was going to be a great publicity.  Was this silly magazine part of his plan?